David  and  Jonathan 


By 

E.  Temple  Thurston 

Author  of  "The  Oty  of  Beautiful  Non«eni«,"  «tc. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  and  London 

Cbe    fmicfcerbocfcer    press 

1919 


COPYRIGHT,  1919 

BY 
E.  TBMPLE   THURSTON 

Third  Impression 


-Cbc  Unkherbochcr  pre«,  Hew  Kerfc 


Dedication 

TO 
LIEUT.  D.  M.  THOMSON,  M.C. 

MY  DEAR  DAVID: 

I  have  no  doubt  the  War  has  been  accountable 
for  many  stranger  happenings  than  our  friendship, 
though  scarcely  anything  more  sincere,  wherefore, 
it  being  a  sentiment  of  mine  to  associate  my  books 
with  my  friendships,  I  am  attaching  your  name  to 
this  story  for  sundry  reasons  needing  no  explana- 
tion to  you. 

While  you  were  out  in  France  you  associated  me 
with  something  worth  more  than  a  thousand  vol- 
umes, and  which  this  tale  of  adventure  can  never 
repay.  All  I  can  hope  is  that  you  will  take  the 
thought  behind  it  and  substitute  it  for  the  deed 
which  the  printer  has  set  forth.  By  all  of  which 
I  mean  no  other  than  that  I  am 

Your  sincere  friend, 

E.  T.  T. 

ADBLPHI,  1918 


2227794 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACK 

I. — I  RECEIVE  A  REWARD  FOR  MY  PAINS        i 

II. — THE  BLOOD  RITUAL  OF  FRIENDSHIP        8 

III. — AN  OPPORTUNITY  TO  SEE  LIFE      .      21 

IV.— THE  VOYAGE        ....       27 

V. — THE  BOTTLE-GREEN  PETTICOAT      .      38 

VI. — MAROONED 51 

VII. — "  Swiss  FAMILY  ROBINSON  "         .      61 

VIII.— THE  MALAGA'S  BOAT    .         .        .^69 

IX. — BURDEN  OF  THE  SEA     .        .        .      75 

X. — RESPONSIBILITIES.        .  .82 

XI. — CONVALESCENCE  ....      87 

XII. — PRELIMINARIES     .         .         .        .94 

XIII. — FEMININITY          .         .        .         .      99 

XIV. — THE  FIRST  BOARD  MEETING          .     no 

XV.— SEX 123 

XVI. — AN  INSIGHT         ....     146 

XVII. — THE  VENTURE  BY  SEA          .         .154 

XVIII. — THE  VENTURE  BY  LAND       .         .     158 

XIX. — THE  SECOND  BOARD  MEETING       .     170 


vi  Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

XX. — THE  BEGINNING  OF  REALIZATION  .     182 

XXI. — JONATHAN'S  ADVENTURE       .         .191 

XXII.— JUSTIFICATION      .        .        .        .201 

XXIII. — THE  APPROACH  OF  THE  INEVITABLE    211 

XXIV. — MAN  TO  MAN      .        .         .        .233 

XXV. — PUTTING  IT  TO  THE  TEST      .        .    244 

XXVI.— THE  TEST  ITSELF.        .        .        .259 

XXVII.— THE  ANSWER       .        .         .        .269 

XXVIIL— HOME  .  .    274 


David  and  Jonathan 


David   and  Jonathan 


CHAPTER  I 

I  RECEIVE  A  REWARD  FOR  MY  PAINS 

T  IFE  or  Fate  or  Destiny — call  it  any  one  of  the 
many  names  that  happen  to  fit  your  termi- 
nology— has  a  subtle  method  of  concealing  its  pur- 
pose. Speech  and  the  accompanying  veneer  of 
civilization  which,  age  by  age,  generation  by  gener- 
ation, are  coated  over  the  real  impulsory  instincts, 
have  succeeded  in  varnishing  our  true  selves  out  of 
recognition.  It  is  as  though  we  were  like  one  of 
those  so-called  old  masters  to  be  seen  in  picture 
framers'  windows.  ' '  Old  masters,  restored,1'  so  you 
read  on  the  printed  card.  Beneath  that  card  is  a 
canvas,  half  of  which  is  covered  by  an  apparently 
old  painting,  the  head  of  a  woman  or  man.  The 
other  half  is  that  head  restored  with  all  the  modern 
paint,  all  the  modern  varnish — restored,  indeed,  in 

x 


2  David  and  Jonathan 

the  sense  that  it  is  made  new,  but  no  more  like 
the  original  painting  than  a  pot  of  paint  is  like  a 
work  of  art. 

In  such  a  manner  as  this  have  our  own  real 
selves  been  restored  and  renovated  out  of  recogni- 
tion. Civilization,  with  the  brushes  of  speech  in 
its  hand,  the  colours  of  varied  manners  and  cus- 
toms on  its  palette,  has  succeeded  in  concealing 
our  real  purposes,  our  true  impulsory  instincts,  so 
that  we  now  are  scarcely  conscious  of  the  primary 
motives  which,  at  the  root  of  all,  actuate  us  in 
everything  we  do. 

Now  and  again  in  face  of  sudden  death,  so  far 
as  we  can  remember  our  sensations  afterwards, 
we  realize  that  the  intention  uppermost  in  our 
minds  was  the  need  for  food,  the  preservation  of 
our  young,  the  combative  instinct,  which,  as  we 
regard  them  from  a  distance  were  actually  the 
most  important  at  the  moment  and  indeed  those 
which  pulled  us  through.  But  quickly  enough  we 
forget  that  insight  into  the  past,  we  lose  all  sense 
of  the  value  of  that  vision  of  our  primal  motives, 
and  carry  on  our  lives  in  the  same  blind  fashion, 
imagining  that  the  appearances  of  facts,  rather 
than  the  facts  themselves,  alone  contribute  to  the 
shaping  of  our  conduct. 


I  Receive  a  Reward  for  my  Pains        3 

This  story — needing  no  recommendation  of  mine 
to  guarantee  its  truth — is  of  one  of  those  isolated 
cases  in  which  two  men,  and  a  woman  as  well,  were 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  absolute  and  eternal 
impulses  of  life,  and  framed  their  conduct,  worked 
out  their  destiny  as  inevitably  and  unconsciously 
upon  the  fundamental  laws  of  existence  as  though 
Civilization  had  but  lightly  touched  them  with  its 
brush  of  ^speech,  as  though  the  pigments  of  habit 
and  custom  had  concealed  nothing  of  what  they 
were. 

It  was  all  by  chance  I  came  across  the  story. 
No  man  who  had  experienced  it  himself  could  have 
told  it  to  any  one  else  or  written  it  for  the  benefit  of 
his  fellow  creatures.  A  man  who  had  been  through 
it  would  be  too  sensitive  to  see  it  in  print,  even 
under  an  assumed  name,  even  with  every  detail  so 
disguised  as  to  make  it  for  ever  unrecognizable  to 
any  but  the  parties  concerned. 

My  friend  evidently  had  felt  that  about  it  and 
yet  had  been  so  obsessed  with  its  value  as  regards 
human  interest,  that  he  had  been  unable  to  resist 
making  a  document  of  it  up  to  a  certain  point  of 
the  story  and  locking  it  away. 

I  am  beginning  my  tale  this  way  because  I  feel 
it  needs  this  formal  announcement  or  introduction. 


4  David  and  Jonathan 

The  reality  of  it  is  in  no  little  degree  the  measure 
of  its  value,  and  the  reality  of  it,  in  however  slight 
a  degree,  is  contained  in  the  way  in  which  it  came 
into  my  hands. 

My  friend  was  spending  a  winter  on  the  Italian 
Riviera  when  a  slight  attack  of  pneumonia  forced 
upon  him  the  prospect  of  remaining  there  well  on 
into  the  spring.  His  family  was  with  him,  and, 
being  tired  of  hotel  life,  he  looked  about,  securing 
at  last  a  charming  villa  for  a  few  months  on  the 
hills  just  outside  Bordighera. 

The  place  fascinated  him.  Both  he  and  his  wife 
loved  the  Italian  life,  the  Italian  people,  the  Italian 
scenery.  He  woke  up  one  spring  morning  with  the 
soft  winds  blowing  in  the  window  across  the  orange 
trees  in  his  garden,  and  felt  in  himself  the  eager 
desire  to  live  there  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

At  breakfast  he  broached  the  project  to  his  wife 
and  children.  There  was  a  general  chorus  of  de- 
light, and  no  sooner  was  the  meal  over  than  he 
set  about  securing  a  lease  for  an  indefinite  period 
and  arranging  for  the  furniture  to  be  turned  out 
with  the  least  possible  delay.  His  own  gods — his 
own  sticks,  he  insisted  on  having  about  him. 

Within  three  days,  I  had  received  a  letter  from 
him  telling  me  of  his  arrangements  and  the  de- 


I  Receive  a  Reward  for  my  Pains        5 

tision  he  had  made  to  sell  the  lease  of  his  house  in 
Grosvenor  Street. 

"You  can  help  me, "  he  said  blandly  in  his  letter. 
"I  don't  want  to  come  home  just  for  a  household 
removal." 

There  followed  then,  on  a  separate  sheet  of  paper, 
a  complete  list  of  all  the  things  he  wanted  to  keep 
and  those  he  wanted  me  to  arrange  to  be  sold  in  a 
Bond  Street  auction  mart.  The  lease  of  his  house 
was  in  the  hands  of  agents.  He  did  not  require 
me  to  exert  myself  over  that. 

Finally  he  concluded,  as  though  offering  me 
reward — as  indeed  it  has  proved — for  my  trouble : 
"In  the  top  [drawer  of  that  Queen  Anne  'desk  in 
the  billiard-room,  you  will  find  a  bulky  package  of 
papers.  They  are  tied  up  with  red  tape.  This  is  not 
indicative  of  their  character.  Do  what  you  like 
with  them." 

Such  casual  reference  as  this  made  no  arrest 
upon  my  mind.  It  was  not  until  the  Queen  Anne 
desk,  with  other  pieces  of  furniture,  was  being 
packed  to  be  sent  off  to  Bordighera  that  I  remem- 
bered this  sentence  in  the  letter,  and  before  the 
keys  were  given  up,  took  the  papers  away  with 
me.  One  Sunday  afternoon,  some  weeks  later, 
when  the  rain  was  falling  in  cascades  from  the 


6  David  and  Jonathan 

overflowing  waterspouts,  when  the  river  steamed 
with  the  splash  of  the  falling  drops  and  the  noise 
of  it  on  my  window-panes  drowned  even  the  dis- 
tant pulse  of  the  trams  along  the  Embankment,  I 
ordered  the  fire  to  be  lit,  filled  my  pipe,  and  took 
those  papers  out  of  my  desk,  to  which  I  had  con- 
signed them. 

It  required  but  two  moments  to  realize  that  this 
was  no  ordinary  statement  of  facts,  but  a  human 
document,  set  out,  not  with  the  experience  of  the 
practised  story  writer,  nor  yet  with  the  precision  of 
a  diary,  yet  more  intimate,  more  illuminating  than 
any  diary  could  have  been;  more  engrossing  than 
any  tale  with  its  introduction,  its  gradual  develop- 
ment, and  its  climax. 

Yet  to  have  published  it  in  the  form  in  which  I 
found  it  so  absorbing  would  not  only  have  been 
impossible  by  reason  of  the  facts  which  it  disclosed 
or  the  identities  it  made  no  effort  to  conceal,  but  its 
wider  interest  would  have  been  lost  to  the  outside 
reader.  He  was  my  friend.  I  had  known  him 
intimately  for  some  years.  It  was  because  I  knew 
him  so  well  that  the  written  substance  of  those 
papers  was  to  me  such  an  amazing  revelation. 
But  for  the  general  reader,  who  was  not  acquainted 
with  my  friend,  I  knew  if  I  were  to  make  use  of 


I  Receive  a  Reward  for  my  Pains        7 

those  papers  as  he  had  given  me  permission  to,  I 
must  adopt  some  other  form  of  expression. 

I  have  transcribed  it,  then,  into  the  form  of  a 
tale,  with  here  and  there  actual  quotations  from  his 
manuscript,  where  I  have  felt  that  sentences,  as  he 
had  written  them,  with  the  memory  of  the  fact 
vivid  in  his  mind,  were  more  virile  and  alive  than 
my  pen  could  ever  hope  to  make  them. 

Here,  then,  is  the  story,  and  if  it  does  not  give 
the  reader  that  impulse  to  reconsider  the  whole 
play  of  motives  and  emotions  throughout  his  life,  I 
shall  be  surprised.  Some  such  impulse  it  gave  me, 
and,  indeed,  has  made  me  often  since  go  back  in  my 
imagination  to  those  days  when  my  friend  was 
faced  with  the  first  instincts  of  Nature.  With  that 
story  before  me,  I  strive  to  undeceive  myself  of 
those  varnished  and  highly  polished  appearances  of 
purpose  with  which  Civilization  makes  us  forget 
at  times  the  creatures  of  flesh  and  blood  we  are. 

I  need  scarcely  say  I  have  altered  all  names,  or 
that  I  have  endeavoured  in  every  way  to  conceal 
the  identity  of  everyone  connected  with  the  story. 
In  a  later  communication,  my  friend  expressly 
wished  this  to  be  done.  In  due  time  it  will  be  seen 
how  natural  a  wish  it  was.  So  it  is,  I  call  him 
David. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  BLOOD  RITUAL   OF  FRIENDSHIP 

CROM  two  points  of  view  it  is  essential  to  be 
given  a  glimpse,  however  brief,  of  David 
Mortlake  when  he  was  a  boy  at  school.  The  first 
is  because  it  is  important  to  realize  his  character 
in  the  period  of  its  formation,  and  the  second 
because  there  he  met  and  made  his  friendship 
with  John  Hawkesley. 

Let  me  take  these  points  of  view,  briefly  as 
possible,  in  their  order.  David  was  precocious. 
There  is  little  doubt  about  that.  His  first  love 
affair,  when  he  was  nine,  was  with  a  girl  of  twenty- 
three — the  essence  of  womanhood  to  him.  This 
affection  was  nourished  in  silence  and  only 
broken  when  he  thought  he  saw  her  laugh  on  an 
occasion  when  in  her  presence  he  was  ordered  to 
bed,  according  to  custom,  at  half -past  eight. 

He  quotes  that  incident  in  his  papers,  and  writes 
of  it  with  a  twitch  of  laughter  in  his  pen.  ' '  I  must 

* 


The  Blood  Ritual  of  Friendship         9 

have  been  an  abominable  youth,"  he  writes. 
Later  love  affairs — and  there  were  many  between 
the  ages  of  thirteen  and  sixteen — he  does  not  allude 
to  with  derision,  though  apparently  he  does  not 
treat  them  as  seriously  as  he  might.  The  serious- 
ness they  had  for  him  at  the  time  may  possibly  be 
dismissed;  but  as  indications  of  the  precocious- 
ness  and  ardent  qualities  of  his  temperament 
they  should  be  considered  within  their  proper 
perspective. 

He  became  engaged  to  be  married  when  he  was 
sixteen.  A  Richard  Feverel  and  Lucy  love  affair 
it  was,  only  that  in  his  case  the  Lucy  was  some 
three  or  four  years  older  than  himself.  I  refer  to 
his  papers  and  find  that  she  was  five  years  older — 
a  girl  of  twenty-one. 

This  affair  was  carried  on  in  secret  after  he  had 
left  school  and  had  gone  up  to  Cambridge.  It  was 
only  broken  by  the  girl  herself  when,  after  two 
years,  she  found  him  still  faithful.  It  became 
necessary  then  to  tell  him  that  with  regard  to 
actual  marriage,  she  had  never  really  entertained 
a  serious  thought  of  him  at  all.  Her  people  hoped 
and  indeed  she  herself  contemplated  her  marriage 
with  a  man  older  than  herself  and  with  more  solid 
prospects  than  David  could  offer  at  the  time. 


io  David  and  Jonathan 

"I  happened  to  be  going  into  a  tobacconist's 
shop  just  after  I  had  received  that  letter, "  he  has 
written,  "and  in  a  glass  mirror  I  caught  sight 
of  my  face.  It  was  a  pallid  grey,  and  my  eyes 
seemed  to  lie  in  my  head  like  burning  coals  in 
dead  ashes.  I  knew  the  man  she  was  going  to 
marry.  I  recognized  it  was  jealousy  I  felt,  and, 
looking  down  at  the  counter  of  the  shop  in  some 
shock  of  realization  at  what  I  had  seen  in  that  re- 
flection, I  found  my  fingers  had  picked  up  one  of 
those  knives  they  open  cigar-boxes  with  and  were 
gripping  it  as  though  a  current  of  electricity  held 
them  there." 

This,  in  all  probability,  was  David's  first  serious 
love  affair.  It  would  appear  to  have  somewhat 
broken  his  health  and  impaired  his  nerves,  since 
after  that  he  suffered  for  some  time  with  insomnia, 
finally  having  to  be  sent  abroad  to  recuperate  his 
strength.  It  was,  however,  by  no  means  the  first 
affair  in  which  his  heart  was  engaged.  There  were 
many  young  ladies,  of  his  own  age  and  older,  with 
whom  his  affections  became  involved.  These 
attachments,  lasting  various  lengths  of  time,  were 
mostly  expressed  by  the  writing  of  long  letters 
conveyed  by  messengers  pledged  to  secrecy. 


The  Blood  Ritual  of  Friendship        n 

He  says  himself :  "I  suppose  other  boys  of  that 
age  are  similarly  inclined  and  drawn  towards 
demonstration  of  their  awakening  affections — 
other  boys  make  little  fools  of  themselves  and 
grow  out  of  folly  as  they  grow  out  of  their  knicker- 
bockers. I  have  alluded  to  these  boyish  esca- 
pades only  because  they  might  be  considered  to 
have  some  bearing  upon  the  events  it  is  my  inten- 
tion to  set  forth." 

Undoubtedly  they  have  a  great  bearing  as  he 
supposes,  and  indeed  contribute  in  no  small  way 
to  the  violent  contrast  of  that  situation  in  which 
surely  no  two  men  were  ever  placed  before  or 
since. 

When  he  says  that  other  boys  of  that  age  are 
similarly  inclined,  as  was  he,  I  fancy  he  suggests 
a  greater  proportion  than  surely  can  be  the  case. 
The  affectionate  instincts  of  most  boys  are  slow 
in  development.  As  a  rule  they  have  the  great- 
est contempt  for  demonstrativeness  and  shudder 
when  even  their  mother  kisses  them  in  the  presence 
of  their  schoolmates. 

I  have  no  doubt  David,  too,  would  have  avoided 
any  public  exhibition  of  his  affections,  but  that 
did  not  deter  him  from  pursuing  them  in  secret. 


12  David  and  Jonathan 

"If  I  thought  I  loved  one  girl,"  he  said,  "I 
thought  I  loved  twenty,  until  after  I  had  gone  up 
to  the  'Varsity  and  was  jilted  and  then  really  knew 
what  the  business  was  like." 

It  is  not  perhaps  so  extraordinary  that  at  that 
age  if  he  liked  one  he  liked  twenty  girls,  the  as- 
tonishing fact  is  that,  between  the  ages  of  thirteen 
and  sixteen,  twenty  girls  of  all  ages  should  have 
liked  him. 

The  girl  who  jilted  him  had  apparently  found 
no  little  delight  in  his  love-making.  This  is  the 
fact  that  seems  to  me  of  vital  importance,  which, 
indeed,  should  be  remembered  and  taken  into 
consideration  when  the  story  in  the  swiftness  and 
tensity  of  its  motion  is  like  to  sweep  such  memory 
absolutely  from  the  mind. 

I  come  now  to  the  second  point  of  view  from 
which  it  has  seemed  necessary  to  me  to  give  this 
brief  sketch  of  David's  youth.  It  was  at  school 
and  between  the  ages  of  thirteen  and  sixteen  that 
he  met  John  Hawkesley. 

At  first  they  were  antagonistic.  David,  quicker 
of  perception,  keener  in  imagination,  intuitive, 
sometimes  almost  to  a  feminine  degree,  outstripped 
this  quiet,  plodding  boy,  who  came  by  his  rewards 


The  Blood  Ritual  of  Friendship       13 

through  sheer  hard  work,  indomitable  persever- 
ance, and  a  quality  of  intellect  which,  moving  slowly 
and  deliberately,  attains  a  sure  and  successful  end. 

It  was  no  doubt  this  quality  of  success  in  both 
their  temperaments  which  clashed  in  those  early 
days  at  school.  Both,  in  all  probability  without 
realizing  it,  recognized  that  capacity  in  each  other. 
Both  felt  the  spirit  of  conflict  it  created  between 
them ;  David  swiftly  in  a  first  glance,  John  grad- 
ually as  they  came  into  opposition  to  each  other 
through  the  daily  round  of  school  life. 

They  were  in  the  same  form,  and  there,  David's 
quicker  intelligence  left  John  plodding  far  behind, 
not  stationary,  but  advancing  by  inevitable  and 
unvarying  stages  of  progression.  He  had  in  those 
days  a  supreme  contempt  for  the  way  in  which 
David  did  his  work.  Translations  left  to  the  in- 
spiration of  the  moment  when  the  class  was  sitting 
and  often  carried  off  with  brilliant  success,  were 
prepared  by  John  with  laborious  thoroughness. 
His  results  were  those  of  unqualified  accuracy,  but 
literal  to  such  a  degree  as  never  earned  for  them 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  master.  They  deserved 
their  points  and  they  got  their  points,  and  by  rea- 
son of  those  points,  John  slowly  but  steadily  rose 
in  the  form  to  the  position  he  deserved. 


14  David  and  Jonathan 

It  was  more,  however,  in  the  playing  field  that 
the  true  essence  of  conflict  between  them  was 
pronounced.  Here,  for  instance,  David  was  a 
half-back  in  the  Rugby  fifteen,  while  John  was  a 
forward.  Just  such  positions  as  these  they  might 
have  been  expected  to  fill.  Both  were  good  players, 
invaluable  to  the  team,  yet  there  was  no  question 
as  to  who,  in  their  separate  capacities,  won  most 
applause  from  the  school. 

To  any  one  ignorant  of  the  game  of  Rugby 
football  this  comparison  may  somewhat  miss  its 
point,  but  I  pursue  it  for  a  moment,  because  David, 
in  those  papers  of  his,  makes  much  of  it,  and  to  me, 
at  least,  it  is  full  of  illumination. 

David  was  one  of  those  brilliant  players  who 
scores  again  and  again  by  daring  feats  and  light- 
ning appreciation  of  opportunity.  John  Hawkesley 
carried  the  weight  of  the  scrum  on  his  broad 
shoulders,  keeping  the  pack  together  when  the 
odds  were  all  against  them. 

David's  most  notable  feat  appears  to  have  been 
on  the  occasion  of  a  great  match  when  five  minutes 
before  time  the  scores  were  level.  The  game  was 
pressing  in  the  school  twenty-five.  The  ball  had 
come  out  of  the  scrimmage  and  was  in  the  hands 
of  the  opposing  three-quarters.  A  little  caieful 


The  Blood  Ritual  of  Friendship        15 

passing  and  a  try  was  certain.  You  may  be  sure 
the  school,  looking  on,  held  its  breath.  It  was 
then  David  made  a  fierce  feint  to  tackle  the  three- 
quarters.  So  determined  was  the  feint  that  the  ball 
was  passed  to  safety.  This  was  exactly  what  David 
had  anticipated.  Every  muscle  in  his  body  was 
set  for  the  volte-face  as  he  turned,  leapt,  and  caught 
the  ball  in  mid-air.  Then  followed  the  greatest 
exhibition  of  an  individual  run  the  school  had  ever 
seen.  Alone  he  carried  the  ball  out  of  his  own 
twenty-five.  There  was  no  one  to  pass  to.  Alone 
he  carried  it  the  whole  length  of  the  field,  tricking 
the  full-back  as  neatly  as  a  full-back  has  ever  been 
tricked  in  his  life  and  planting  a  try — as  they  say 
in  football  journalese — between  the  uprights. 

That  was  David's  feat.  John's,  in  its  way,  was 
no  less  characteristic  or  worthy  of  applause.  A 
scrimmage  had  broken  away  in  their  opponents' 
twenty-five.  It  was  no  moment  to  pick  up  the 
ball  and  pass.  A  loose  ball  in  one's  own  twenty- 
five — but  this  story  is  not  for  players  of  Rugby 
football.  The  forwards  were  dribbling  it  at  their 
feet.  At  their  feet  John  threw  himself  on  the  ball 
— one  cannot  praise  him  for  his  duty — while  his 
body  became  the  butt  of  all  their  kicks.  But  that 
was  not  all.  He  held  the  ball;  he  got  to  his  feet; 


16  David  and  Jonathan 

he  started  for  the  goal  line,  and  immediately  there 
were  three  men  like  dogs  at  his  heels.  One  sprang 
on  his  shoulders,  two  took  him  round  the  middle, 
yet  all  between  them  could  not  bring  him  to  the 
ground.  He  carried  them,  all  three,  fifteen  yards 
on  his  back  and  scored  a  try,  with  the  school  lined 
around  the  touch  line  shouting  themselves  hoarse 
with  delight. 

David  tells  these  two  stories  with  uncommon 
zest.  He  loved  the  one  evidently  no  less  than  the 
other,  and  it  is  not  only  because  he  thought  they 
served  his  purpose  that  I  have  troubled  the  reader 
with  them,  but  because  they  are  vivid  pictures  to 
my  mind  of  that  contrast  of  character  which  makes 
for  this  story  the  absorbing  interest  it  has. 

There  is  only  need  now  to  speak  of  that  an- 
tagonism which  existed  between  them  for  the  first 
three  terms  while  they  were  together  at  that  school. 
It  ended  in  the  fourth  term,  when,  on  some  school- 
boy pretext,  a  challenge  was  given  by  John  and 
a  fight  accepted  by  David  in  the  corner  behind 
the  chapel.  There  were  sides  for  both  parties, 
but  no  doubt  about  the  issue. 

"If  you  like  to  beg  my  pardon,"  said  John 
while  they  were  taking  off  their  coats,  "that'll  be 
enough." 


The  Blood  Ritual  of  Friendship        17 

David's  taunt  to  the  effect  that  if  John  had  lost 
his  stomach  for  a  fight  it  was  his  own  lookout, 
settled  matters  as  to  that,  but  by  no  means  belied 
his  feelings  about  the  business. 

He  says:  "I  felt  as  sick  as  a  cat,  and  couldn't 
have  been  better  pleased  if  a  master  had  come 
round  the  corner  of  the  chapel  and  stopped  it 
before  it  began.  The  fear,  however,  of  showing 
fear  is  the  most  compelling  fear  of  all.  I  knew 
John  was  not  afraid  of  me.  It  was  really  generos- 
ity on  his  part.  He  was  ready  to  give  up  his  first 
chance  of  scoring  heavily  over  me.  I  did  not  re- 
gard it  in  that  light  then,  and  utilized  the  oppor- 
tunity for  a  cheap  gibe  at  his  expense.  He  was  not 
out  of  pocket  for  long." 

I  somewhat  like  the  honesty  of  that — "he  was 
not  out  of  pocket  for  long" — and  apparently  it 
was  no  less  than  the  truth.  In  scarcely  more  than 
ten  minutes,  John  Hawkesley  had,  as  David  says, 
"made  a  complete  mess  of  him."  Half  a  dozen 
times  from  the  force  of  John's  powerful  blows,  he 
had  found  himself  sprawling  on  the  ground.  It  was 
a  moment  of  no  little  relief  to  him  when  a  master 
did  make  his  appearance  round  the  corner  of  the 
chapel  wall  and  put  a  stop  to  the  encounter. 


1 8  David  and  Jonathan 

As  they  walked  away  in  the  crowd  of  boys, 
David,  with  his  bleeding  nose,  his  cut  lip,  and  two 
puffy  eyes,  found  himself  by  the  side  of  John.  He 
firmly  believes,  he  says,  that  it  was  what  John  did 
at  that  moment  which  became  the  basis  of  their 
friendship. 

"He  was  scarcely  hurt  at  all,"  says  David, 
' '  and  I  was  bleeding  like  a  stuck  pig.  As  we  were 
pushed  together  in  the  crowd  of  boys,  he  just  said, 
'Want  a  handkerchief  ?'  and  gave  me  his  own  to 
use  on  my  bloody  face.  What  that  meant  as  a 
chance  to  wipe  away  the  evidence  of  defeat,  I  can't 
exactly  explain  but  it  was  the  soul  of  generosity, 
and  I  took  it." 

This  was  the  beginning  of  the  friendship 
between  David  and  John  Hawkesley.  Before 
two  more  terms  had  gone  by,  they  had  earned  the 
nickname  of  David  and  Jonathan,  and,  except  for 
the  forms  which  at  that  time  separated  them,  were 
never  seen  apart. 

As  introduction  to  the  events  that  follow,  indeed 
to  the  whole  purpose  of  this  story,  these  few  inci- 
dents are  practically  the  sum  of  all  that  need  be 
said.  David  left  school  for  the  'Varsity,  Jonathan 


The  Blood  Ritual  of  Friendship        19 

for  a  college  of  mining  engineers.  The  stream  of 
life  came  between  their  days  together,  but  did  not 
divide  their  friendship. 

Neither  one  nor  the  other  was  given  to  corre- 
spondence. They  met  frequently,  but  generally 
at  each  other's  clubs;  spent  an  evening  together, 
mostly  filled  with  school  reminiscences,  and  then 
fell  apart  again.  The  career  which  Jonathan  had 
undertaken  carried  him  into  far  countries,  pro- 
specting for  his  company.  The  work  suited  his 
temperament.  He  had  a  strong  vein  of  adventure 
in  him  combined  with  a  proud  satisfaction  in  the 
loneliness  of  his  own  company.  For  months  he 
would  be  away  in  the  wildest  corners  of  the  earth, 
then  turn  up  unexpectedly  one  day  in  London, 
dropping  in  at  David's  .breakfast-hour  in  the 
Albany  as  though  he  had  done  little  more  than 
cross  the  street  to  get  there. 

At  the  respective  ages  of  thirty-five  and  thirty- 
six  neither  of  them  was  married.  Both  chaffed 
each  other  about  their  possible  chances,  but  what- 
ever chances  there  were,  neither  David  nor  Jona- 
than availed  himself  of  them.  With  Jonathan 
perhaps  it  was  an  inherent  and  temperamental 
shyness  in  the  presence  of  women.  It  would  be 
idle  to  say  that  he  did  not  know  or  had  not  ex- 


20  David  and  Jonathan 

perienced  their  attractions.  More  it  was  that  he 
was  fearful  of  the  power  he  knew  they  would  have, 
and  the  influence  they  would  exert  upon  his  life. 

With  David,  he  confesses,  it  was  the  bitterness 
of  that  first  love  affair  which  in  some  sense  gave 
him  immunity.  It  was  not  so  much  that  he  lost 
his  liking  for  women  as  that  he  liked  too  many. 
One  would  have  the  attraction  of  the  woman  who 
had  jilted  him;  another  the  attraction  of  con- 
stancy she  had  never  possessed ;  another  possessed 
them  both,  and  yet  another  possessed  neither,  but 
had  an  attraction  of  her  own.  He  became  inti- 
mate with  them  all,  but  loved  none. 

"Men,"  he  writes,  on  one  of  those  papers  he 
left  me  in  that  Queen  Anne  desk — "men  only  love 
one  woman,  and  if  they  lose  her,  they  go  on  loving 
her  qualities  in  other  women,  never  finding  them 
all,  for  the  rest  of  their  lives.  I  believe, "  he  says, 
' '  in  the  principle  of  mating.  We  pick  and  choose — 
but  some  of  us  are  picking  all  our  lives." 


CHAPTER  III 

AN  OPPORTUNITY  TO  SEE  LIFE 

TT  was  when  David  was  thirty-seven  and  Jona- 
•*•  than  thirty-eight,  there  arose  that  chain  of 
events  which,  in  the  phrase  with  which  this  story 
begins,  revealed  in  these  two  the  purpose  of  Life, 
Fate,  or  Destiny  so  cunningly  concealed  in  ninety- 
nine  individuals  out  of  a  hundred. 

David,  well-to-do,  with  a  comfortable  little  for- 
tune which  had  been  left  him  by  one  of  those  un- 
expected turns  of  generosity  in  a  distant  relative, 
was  contemplating  a  three  months'  big  game  shoot- 
ing in  Central  Africa.  Jonathan,  from  the  wilds  of 
South  America,  returned  just  as  David  was  making 
a  fuss  over  buying  kit,  his  floor  strewn  with  tropi- 
cal garments,  gun  cases  standing  in  corners  of  the 
room,  and  books  of  travel  lying  open  on  the  table. 

"What  the  deuce  is  this?"  asked  Jonathan, 
putting  his  head  round  the  corner  of  the  door, 
never  announcing  his  presence,  but  speaking  in  that 

21 


22  David  and  Jonathan 

casual  tone  of  voice — in  the  same  way  as  he  had 
offered  the  loan  of  his  handkerchief,  or  as  though 
he  had  just  walked  up  from  those  rooms  he  always 
kept  in  Gray's  Inn  and  called  his  permanent  hutch. 
So  far  as  being  a  permanency,  he  kept  them  always, 
but  if  he  occupied  them  two  months  out  of  the  year, 
it  was  as  much  as  ever  he  made  use  of  them. 

' '  What  the  deuce  is  this  ? ' '  said  he,  and  twice  over. 
To  the  repetition  of  that  question,  David  explained, 
whereupon  Jonathan  sat  down  on  the  nearest  chair, 
looking  on  in  silence  at  the  process  of  packing  with 
a  sympathetic  grin  of  amusement  on  his  face. 

"Going  to  wear  all  those  things?"  he  asked 
presently. 

David  referred  to  authorities — mostly  tailors — 
who  had  assured  him  he  would  require  every  stitch. 

' '  Well — put  the  strongest  and  the  most  durable 
on  your  back, "  said  Jonathan. 

David  inquired  why. 

"Niggers, "  he  was  told,  "have  a  habit  of  losing 
interest  in  their  load,  dropping  it  in  unlikely  places, 
and  you  never  see  them  again.  A  wise  man  keeps 
his  best  on  his  back." 

"The  man  who's  arranging  the  trip  will  see  to 
that,"  said  David,  with  all  the  confidence  of  one 
who  has  paid  his  money  in  advance.  "He's  told 


An  Opportunity  to  See  Life  23 

me  what  to  bring,  and  says  I  can  leave  all  the 
porterage  question  entirely  to  him." 

Jonathan  sat  silent  for  some  moments,  and  then 
he  said : ' '  You're  going  to  a  part  of  the  world  where 
values  as  you  understand  them  don't  exist.  You 
seem  to  have  forgotten  that,  or  perhaps  you  never 
knew  it.  You're  going  to  a  part  of  the  world  where 
money  has  only  face  value,  and  as  soon  as  it's  in  the 
next  man's  pocket  its  face  is  out  of  sight.  Where 
you're  going,  human  nature  is  human  nature.  In 
this  environment  one's  apt  to  forget  what  that  is. 
But  as  far  as  all  this  kit's  concerned,  I'll  tell  you. 
If  a  man  finds  the  load  of  it  more  irksome  than  he 
thinks  the  money's  worth  he's  been  paid  to  bear 
it,  he'll  drop  the  whole  caboose  in  the  night  and 
he'll  scoot.  There  are  no  symbols  where  you're 
going.  It's  the  real  thing — the  real  instinct — the 
real  impulse.  Money,  in  Piccadilly,  is  a  symbol, 
with  the  law  behind  it  to  hold  it  up  on  the  end 
of  a  processional  staff.  Out  there,  it's  what  you 
can  get  for  it,  and,  having  got  it,  it  means  nothing 
to  any  one  but  you.  That's  as  immoral  as  you 
like,  but  it's  what  Adam  and  Eve  felt  when  they 
shared  the  apple  off  the  tree,  and  if  you'd  knocked 
about  as  I  have,  you'd  know  there's  the  old  Adam 
and  the  old  Eve  still  to  be  accounted  for  in  every 


24  David  and  Jonathan 

human  beast  that  walks  on  two  legs.  We're  civiliz- 
ing— but  it's  a  mistake  to  suppose  we're  civilized. 
We're  growing,  but  it's  a  mistake  to  suppose  we're 
grown  up.  Behind  the  mass  that  follows  the 
symbol  in  the  procession,  there's  still  the  individ- 
ual who  only  knows  the  value  of  things  when 
they're  his." 

When  Jonathan  talked  after  a  long  silence,  it 
was  generally  a  serious  effort  of  speech.  His  in- 
telligence had  not  that  swiftness  of  David's.  He 
never  arrested  attention  by  what  he  said.  He 
forced  his  claim  upon  it. 

I  have  transcribed  the  whole  of  these  remarks 
of  his  not  only  for  the  bearing  they  have  upon  the 
story  which  follows,  but  because  of  their  value 
in  these  times  of  world  upheaval  when  man  is 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  elemental  conditions 
of  his  nature,  and  politicians,  despite  themselves, 
are  being  made  to  realize  what  Jonathan  describes 
as  "the  individual  behind  the  mass  that  follows 
the  symbol — the  individual  who  only  knows  the 
value  of  things  when  they  are  his." 

I  do  not  want  to  depart  from  my  story  to  insist 
?ipon  this  point  of  view.  I  will  only  quote  one 
remark  of  David's  at  the  very  end  of  his  papers. 


An  Opportunity  to  See  Life  25 

"Politicians,"  he  says,  "are  the  mountebanks, 
the  quacks,  the  charlatans  of  modern  civilization. 
So  long  as  they  refuse  to  realize  the  actual  human 
being  at  the  heart  of  the  ballot,  they  will  continue 
to  be  the  false  priests  of  human  emotions;  so  long 
as  they  continue  to  regard  the  individual  as  merely 
a  pawn  in  the  game,  they  will  lose  the  chivalry  of 
their  knights,  the  sanctity  of  their  bishops,  and 
all  the  true  sense  of  kingdoms  in  their  kings 
and  queens.  They  will, "  he  ends  abruptly,  "lose 
the  very  game  they  are  playing  for  their  own 
paltry  and  contemptible  ends." 

I  quote  that  not  only  because  it  is  in  his  papers, 
but  because  to  him  it  was  part  of  the  lesson  he 
learnt  under  the  extraordinary  conditions  that 
are  to  be  related  here.  It  is  merely  a  side  issue 
of  what  he  realized,  yet  I  could  not  omit  it  as 
part  of  the  aspect  of  the  whole  case. 

The  next  morning  after  his  return,  Jonathan 
attended  a  board  meeting  of  his  company.  There 
he  learned  that  it  was  required  of  him  to  go  to  some 
district  north-west  of  Rhodesia,  to  prospect  in  a 
part  of  the  country  where  reports  informed  them 
there  was  likelihood  of  copper  in  large  quantities. 

They  gave  him  a  month's  holiday,  and  believed 


26  David  and  Jonathan 

him — as  he  was — the  most  valuable  servant  in 
their  employment  when  he  said  that  he  wanted 
no  more  than  a  week  at  home.  In  an  hour  he  was 
back  at  David's  chambers  in  the  Albany. 

"When  are  you  going?"  he  asked. 

David  gave  him  the  day. 

"Booked  your  passage?" 

"Yes." 

"Then  I'm  with  you." 

"You?" 

"Yes — you  and  I,  who've  never  done  more 
together  than  walk  down  Piccadilly  and  dine  at 
the  'Savoy' — who've  seen  no  more  together  than 
pretty  girls  in  painted  scenes  at  the  theatres. 
You  and  I,  and  we'll  lean  over  the  taffrail  of  the  old 
boat  and  look  at  things  with  no  back-cloth  to  them. 
Then  you  can  tell  me  what  you're  doing  with  your 
life,  and  I'll  tell  you  what  I'm  doing  with  mine. 
There's  time  to  talk  on  an  old  boat  thumping  out 
her  fourteen  knots.  And  I  expect  we  shall  find 
we're  both  of  us  missing  the  whole  purpose  of  it 
with  both  hands.  The  half-backs  are  passing  us 
the  ball  all  the  time,  and  all  the  time  we're  letting 
it  slip  through  our  fingers.  Cheer  oh !" 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  VOYAGE 

'T'HEY  sailed  from  Tilbury  docks  one  Thursday 
afternoon  on  the  Malaga  bound  for  Forcados. 
This  was  as  long  ago  as  the  year  1910,  long  before 
world  catastrophes  were  thought  of  and  Europe 
lay,  to  all  appearances,  asleep,  dreaming  gently  of 
a  permanent  Civilization ;  sublimely  unconscious 
of  the  human  passions  hidden  in  the  mass  of 
peoples,  though  still  actuating  in  the  private  life 
of  each  separate  individual,  still  the  elemental 
root  of  all  that  force  which  now  is  licensed  in  its 
feast  of  blood  throughout  half  the  world. 

The  man  conducting  the  big  game  shoot,  in 
whose  hands  David  had  placed  himself,  was  to  be 
met  at  Lokoja,  some  four  hundred  miles  up  the 
Niger  River,  where  you  take  off  into  the  unknown 
heart  of  the  wild  world.  He  had  gone  out  some 
two  weeks  ahead  to  make  all  preparations,  so  that 
they  would  be  ready  to  start  on  David's  arrival. 

27 


28  David  and  Jonathan 

Jonathan  described  it  as  a  Cook's  tour,  which 
might  as  well  have  been  to  catch  lizards  on  the 
steps  of  the  Roman  amphitheatre  at  Fiesole  as 
hunt  lions  in  Central  Africa. 

"The  fun  of  doing  things  in  this  world, "  he  said, 
"lies  in  doing  them  for  yourself."  To  which 
David  replied:  "The  fun  of  doing  things  in  this 
world  lies  in  doing,  not  labouring  at  them." 

At  every  turn  in  this  story,  you  have  the  con- 
trast of  these  men  flung  vividly  before  you.  I 
could  not  help  realizing  as  I  read  David's  papers, 
that  here  were  two  prototypes:  the  old  civiliza- 
tion and  the  new,  the  one  with  all  the  force  of 
physical  nature,  silent  but  insistent,  in  him,  the 
other  with  all  the  force  of  nature's  increasing 
mentality  leaping  towards  the  unknown,  just  as 
David  had  leaped  into  the  air  to  intercept  that 
pass  on  the  football  field  which  the  swift  action  of 
his  mind  had  superimposed  upon  the  mind  of  his 
opponent. 

Leaning  over  the  taffrail  of  the  old  boat  as  she 
drove  her  southern  path  through  waters  now  blue, 
now  green,  now  grey  of  lead  with  the  mists  that 
beat  across  Biscay,  they  talked,  long  whiles  to- 
gether, as  they  had  said  they  would,  of  what  they 
were  doing  with  their  lives. 


The  Voyage  29 

David  spends  many  pages  in  his  papers  on  the 
full  report  of  those  conversations.  They  are  all  an 
illuminating  part  of  that  human  document,  but 
cannot,  in  the  accumulating  interest  of  the  story, 
be  quoted  in  their  entirety. 

"The  conversation,"  says  David,  "one  night 
turned  on  the  question  of  marriage.  It  was  a 
couple  of  nights  before  we  had  reached  Teneriffe. 
The  scent  of  the  tropics  was  getting  into  the  air. 
We  had  been  out  some  days.  I  can't  describe  that 
scent  of  the  tropics.  Somewhere  in  the  inner 
galleries  of  your  mind,  it  knocks  down  the  Ten 
Commandments  like  a  row  of  ninepins.  I  suppose 
Jonathan  must  have  felt  romantic,  and,  as  far  as 
I  am  concerned,  it  was  the  scent  of  the  air  in  my 
blood,  like  the  perfume  you  catch  in  the  wake  of  a 
woman  who  passes  you  in  the  street.  Immediately 
behind  her  as  she  goes  by  there  is  a  sort  of  vacuum 
created  by  the  motion  of  her  passage.  For  a  mo- 
ment you  notice  nothing.  Then  the  atmosphere 
sweeps  in,  sweeps  in  to  a  trail  of  faint  perfume  that 
lingers  in  the  air  and  reaches  your  nostrils  when  it 
is  too  late  to  see  what  she  was  like.  You  do  not  get 
an  impression  of  that  woman  in  particular.  She 
has  gone  on  too  far  ahead  for  that.  But  you  get  an 


30  David  and  Jonathan 

impression  of  her  whole  sex,  as  of  a  voice  calling 
from  beyond  still  curtains,  a  voice  it  were  unwise 
to  listen  to,  a  voice  it  would  be  folly  to  ignore. " 

This  is  David  feeling  out  into  those  realms  of 
literature  which  it  never  really  became  his  ambi- 
tion to  explore.  Had  it  ever  been  so,  then  surely 
he  and  not  I  would  have  been,  what  for  a  better 
title  I  must  call,  the  author  of  this  book.  Litera- 
ture, indeed,  he  never  took  to,  though  he  was  a 
great  reader  of  books,  Yet  seldom  to  my  know- 
ledge have  I  come  across  a  nature  more  capable  of 
expressing  itself.  His  music  was  a  joy  to  listen  to, 
though  impossible  to  capture  on  the  printed  page. 
He  played  by  ear  and  many  a  half  hour  have  I 
listened  to  him  improvising  gestures,  phrases,  im- 
pressions; meditations  in  music.  The  charm  of 
them  was  irresistible,  yet  so  long  as  you.  heard 
him  he  might  never  play  them  again. 

It  was  the  same  with  his  painting.  I  have 
pictures  of  his  now  on  my  walls,  pictures  which 
in  some  subtle  sense  of  truth  they  possess  have 
found  a  lasting  place  on  my  walls  and  have  a  mean- 
ing there,  a  meaning,  the  interest  of  which  is  al- 
ways fresh  in  my  mind. 

I  have  no  hesitation  in  believing  that  the  un- 


The  Voyage  31 

expected  generosity  of  that  distant  relation,  leav- 
ing him  his  comfortable  fortune,  deprived  the  world 
of  a  true  artist.  To  me  it  seems  his  capacities 
were  limited  by  the  complete  absence  of  desire 
for  publicity,  a  genuine  contempt  for  fame.  His 
music  and  his  painting  both  satisfied  him,  inso- 
much as  they  expressed  himself  and  pleased  his 
friends.  He  asked  no  more  of  life  or  the  talents 
which  had  been  given  him. 

"What  would  happen  if  I  got  a  name  for  these 
things?"  he  once  said  to  me.  "It  would  become 
more  real  than  the  things  themselves.  If  I  got  a 
success,  nothing  would  content  me  but  that  I 
should  heap  another  on  top  of  it.  God  would 
never  have  made  the  world  if  there'd  been  any- 
one to  praise  Him  for  it.  He'd  have  lived  on  His 
reputation  for  the  first  day." 

Here  anyhow  was  David  wandering — as  ami- 
ably as  he  wandered  all  through  life — in  the  paths 
of  literature.  His  description  of  that  night  on  the 
Malaga,  when  he  and  Jonathan  leant  on  the  taff- 
rail,  dropping  the  ash  from  their  cigars  into  the 
running  sea  below,  is  worth  continuing. 

"A  girl  had  been  singing  songs  downstairs, "  he 
goes  on.  He  does  not  mention  whether  he  had 


32  David  and  Jonathan 

entertained  the  audience  himself  as  well  he  could 
have  done.  "She  had  that  quality  of  voice  which 
disarms  criticism — in  truth,  never  asks  for  it.  It 
was  simple,  straightforward,  sweet  without  quality, 
gentle  without  technique.  The  sort  of  voice  a 
mother  sings  her  kid  to  sleep  with,  when  she  thinks 
they  two  have  got  the  whole  house  to  themselves. 
It  made  me  realize  how  many  miles  I  was  from 
England.  It  had  some  sort  of  effect  of  the  same 
nature  on  Jonathan,  though  I  don't  suppose  for  a 
moment  he  traced  it.  All  that  happened  was  that 
after  she  had  sung  three  songs,  an  elderly  gentle- 
man who  was  going  out  to  Teneriffe  for  his  health, 
got  up  and  said:  'I'm  going  to  tell  you  a  few  funny 
stories  that  I  don't  think  you've  heard  before.' 
Jonathan  looked  down  at  me  and  said:  'What 
d'you  say  to  a  stroll  on  deck?' 

"  On  deck  we  went,  hearing  the  voice  of  the  elderly 
gentleman  as  we  passed  up  the  companion-way, 
saying,  '  I  was  once  staying  with  an  aunt  of  mine 
in  Moreton-in-the-Marsh. '  Then  the  rush  of  that 
soft  air  off  the  sea  beat  in  our  faces,  the  million 
stars  washed  out  the  sight  of  the  cabin  lights, 
and  the  swish  of  water  swallowed  up  his  voice. 

"I  suppose  we  must  have  walked  a  mile  up  and 
down  that  deck  without  saying  a  word,  when 


The  Voyage  33 

Jonathan  suddenly  stopped  under  the  captain's 
bridge  and  leaning  on  the  taffrail,  he  said:  'I've 
been  trying  ever  since  we  started  to  put  into  two 
or  three  short  sentences — like  the  orders  I  give 
to  foremen — what  I'm  doing  with  my  life,  and  I'm 
damned  if  I  can  do  it.  The  whole  thing  beats  me 
sometimes.  Men  have  the  means  of  living  and 
women  have  the  means  of  life.  Somehow  or  other 
that  seems  all  wrong.  It's  bad  business.  It's 
rotten  organization.' 

"I  laughed,"  says  David.  "It  was  so  plain 
where  all  that  had  come  from.  A  little  girl  with 
a  gentle  voice,  singing  simple  songs  to  the  accom- 
paniment of  an  upright  Broadwood  piano,  and 
here  was  a  man  with  a  biceps  like  a  lump  of 
iron  pyrites  talking  about  women  having  the 
means  of  life  and  feeling  that  they  had  somehow 
beaten  him  in  the  bargain. 

"I  told  him  there  was  an  obvious  way  out  of 
the  difficulty.  'Rotten  as  the  organization  may 
be,'  I  said,  'it's  capable  of  adjustment  on  good 
business  lines.' 

'"What  lines?'  he  asked.  'The  two  capacities 
are  opposed.  A  woman  brings  life  into  the  world 
which  she  can't  support.  A  man  can  find  the 
means  of  living  and  cannot,  in  the  self-centred 


34  David  and  Jonathan 

order  of  things,  be  expected  to  turn  those  means  to 
any  one's  account  but  his  own.  What's  the  ad- 
justment possible  between  functions  as  diametri- 
cally opposed  as  those  ? ' 

"'An  amalgamation  of  the  two  firms,'  said  I. 
'Matrimony.  That's  what  you  and  I  have  failed 
to  do  with  our  lives. ' 

"'What?' 

' ' '  Marry.    We're  a  couple  of  bachelors. ' 

"Jonathan  dropped  a  half-inch  of  cigar  ash  into 
the  swirl  of  water  rushing  by  beneath  us.  In  that 
still  night  I  believe  we  both  thought  we  heard  the 
hiss  of  it." 

I  must  leave  out  some  of  David's  narrative  here, 
for  with  his  disregard  for  the  construction  of  a 
story,  much  that  followed  in  the  relation  of  their 
conversation  that  night  is  superfluous.  They  both 
talked  as,  on  such  rare  occasions  as  these  when 
there  is  no  counter-attraction  of  life,  men  some- 
times do  talk  of  the  women  who  have  come  and 
gone  in  the  gamut  of  their  experience. 

It  is  enough  to  say  that  Jonathan's  was  a  far 
more  simple  statement  than  that  of  David's.  The 
work  upon  which  he  was  engaged  had  saved  him 
on  more  than  one  occasion.  Just  as  the  situation 


The  Voyage  35 

had  been  drawing  to  a  crisis,  he  had  received  his 
sailing  orders  and  set  off  towards  some  obscure 
corner  of  the  world  where  for  many  months  black 
women  were  the  only  creatures  of  the  sex  with 
whom  he  came  in  contact. 

David  laughs  as  he  reports  him  saying : 

"The  moment  the  old  whistle  blew,  I  used  to 
feel,  'Well,  I'm  out  of  that.  I'm  blowed  if  I  know 
whether  I'm  glad  or  sorry — but  I'm  out  of  it.  By 
the  time  I  get  back  we  shall  both  be  wondering 
what  the  dickens  we  saw  in  each  other.' " 

Jonathan,  it  is  plain  enough  to  be  seen,  was  the 
restless,  the  roving,  and  adventurous  spirit. 

"You  can't,"  he  said  concisely — "you  can't 
meet  the  ordinary  risks  of  life — my  sort  of  life — 
you  can't  meet  'em  face  to  face  when  there  is 
any  one's  but  your  own  ugly  features  between  them 
and  you.  I  like  my  job  better  than  anything  else 
in  life.  I  like  the  risk  of  it,  the  freedom  of  it,  the 
infinite  variety  of  it.  If  I  married,  I  should  have 
to  give  up  this  side  of  it  and  take  to  the  wrangling  of 
floating  companies  in  London  board  rooms.  Well 
— women  won't  give  up  exercising  their  means  of 


36  David  and  Jonathan 

life — why  should  I  give  up  my  capacities  for  the 
means  of  living,  means  which  I  choose  to  take  in 
my  own  way?" 

There  is  Jonathan's  case  for  the  bachelor,  while 
David's,  if  more  intricate,  is  much  the  same. 

"I  had  never  found  the  woman,"  he  says  with 
characteristic  honesty,  "who  I  thought  could  bear 
the  sight  of  me  after  a  few  months.  The  only 
women  who  were  interested  in  me  were  interested 
because  they  could  not  find  me  out.  I  always 
knew  the  moment  when  they  had.  It  was  a  matter 
of  disillusion  for  both  of  us — for  her  because  she 
thought  she  had  found  out  all  about  me,  for  me 
because  so  long  as  she  tried,  I  knew  she  would  only 
find  out  half.  It  was  not  that  I  wanted  to  shirk 
the  responsibilities  of  married  life,  or  the  bringing 
of  children  into  the  world.  There  were  times  when 
I  longed  for  them.  But  over  and  above  all  those 
times  hung  the  inevitable  sense  of  jeopardy  in 
which  I  was  placing  not  so  much  myself  as  some- 
one else.  I  don't  know  how  many  times  I  have 
read  that  sentence  of  Stevenson's  in  Virginibus 
Puerisque — a  bedside  book  of  mine — the  sentence 
in  the  first  essay  of  that  name.  'She,  whose 


The  Voyage  37 

happiness  you  most  desire,'  he  writes  of  marriage, 
'you  choose  to  be  your  victim.'  And  again, 
'  God  made  you,  but  you  marry  yourself  and  for  all 
that  your  wife  suffers,  no  one  is  responsible  but 
you.'  And  lastly,  'You  may  think  you  had  a 
conscience  and  believed  in  God;  but  what  is  a 
conscience  to  a  wife? ' ' 

This,  then,  is  David's  case,  and  as  I  have  said, 
there  is  little  to  choose  between  them. 

In  such  a  manner  they  talked  that  evening  on 
the  deck  of  the  Malaga,  leaning  over  the  taffrail 
beneath  the  captain's  bridge.  That  conversation 
probably  lasted  for  an  hour  or  more  and  then  the 
sounds  of  the  tinkly  notes  of  the  old  Broadwood 
piano  crept  up  the  steps  of  the  companion-way, 
jingling  in  their  ears.  Another  moment  and  the 
girl's  voice  began  singing: 

"A  little  winding  road 
Goes  over  the  hill  to  the  plain." 

"Let's  come  down  below,"  said  Jonathan. 
"It's  blowing  up  for  rain." 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  BOTTLE-GREEN   PETTICOAT 

TT  was  on  the  ninth  day  out,  after  they  had  passed 
Teneriffe,  there  happened  that  which,  for  those 
whose  taste  is  for  adventure,  sets  this  story  in  the 
swift  motion  of  events. 

The  few  hours  they  spent  on  shore  in  that  port 
while  the  Malaga  shipped  her  coal,  though  David 
gives  some  pages  to  their  account,  are  not  of  real 
value.  His  descriptions  of  the  dust  of  coal,  the 
noisy  rattle  of  the  steaming  winches, — "like  a 
factory  of  lathes  with  every  bolt  gone  loose,"  of 
the  shrill  screaming  and  whistling  of  Spanish  dance 
music  from  the  coaling  gang  as  they  worked  like 
slaves  under  the  lash  of  time,  even  of  the  small 
brown  naked  boys,  "shiny  like  otters,"  crowd- 
ing round  the  ship  in  their  cockle-shell  boats,  howl- 
ing for  pennies — all  these  excursions  of  David's 
into  the  realm  of  descriptive  writing  are  no  more 
than  indicative  of  the  artist  he  was,  of  the  way  in 


The  Bottle-Green  Petticoat  39 

which  the  making  of  a  picture,  even  in  a  medium 
as  foreign  to  him  as  words,  had  its  irresistible 
fascination. 

Of  greater  interest  than  this  is  the  account  he 
gives  of  himself  and  Jonathan,  taking  the  young 
girl  who  sang  "The  little  winding  road"  to 
lunch  at  the  Metropole  Hotel,  having  already 
escorted  her  round  the  town  to  all  the  lace  shops 
within  range. 

"We  sat  in  the  Palm  Court  after  lunch,"  says 
David,  "  and  most  of  that  time,  Jonathan  scarcely 
said  a  word.  There  was  I,  talking  about  big 
game  shooting  as  though  I'd  been  in  the  tropics 
half  my  life,  and  he,  who  had  seen  the  world  all 
sides,  sat  smoking  his  cigar  and  chewing  a  smile 
into  it  whenever  I  got  right  out  of  my  depth  with 
the  questions  she  kept  pitching  at  me." 

Only  that  paragraph  seems  to  me  of  interest,  for 
again  it  is  the  sidelight  of  contrast  just  flung  for 
the  moment  on  these  two.  The  rest  of  his  narra- 
tive, so  far  I  mean  as  that  break  of  the  voyage  at 
Teneriffe  is  concerned,  is  composed  of  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  town  itself,  which,  being  his  first 
journey  out  of  Europe,  seems  to  have  impressed 


40  David  and  Jonathan 

him  beyond  the  necessities  of  what  he  had  to  tell. 
Making  a  precis  of  all  he  has  written  here,  I  could 
easily  sum  it  all  up  in  three  or  four  words:  "Mules, 
dust,  and  English  beer — according  to  advertise- 
ments." I  feel  I  am  losing  no  value  in  the  story 
when  I  leave  it  at  that. 

It  was,  as  I  have  said,  on  the  ninth  day  out 
and  three  days  after  they  had  passed  Teneriffe, 
that  David,  Jonathan,  and  the  young  girl  were 
walking  up  and  down  the  deck  after  dinner.  He 
does  not  even  mention  the  girl's  name;  therefore 
I  take  it  she  had  made  no  really  deep  impression 
on  him. 

They  were  cutting  in  fairly  close  to  the  coast  as 
the  course  had  turned  sou 'east  by  east,  and  that 
morning,  so  they  had  been  informed,  had  passed 
Cape  Palmas.  A  purple  cloud,  settled  like  a 
butterfly  on  the  horizon,  was  all  they  had  seen 
of  the  land.  Before  sunset  it  had  vanished 
again,  though  they  were  scarcely  more  than  eight 
miles  out.  A  wind  was  getting  up  and  the 
prospects  of  a  nasty  spell  of  weather  were  gather- 
ing about  the  sky.  "The  sun,"  says  David, 
"had  dropped  down  the  heavens,  that  were  a  field 
of  primroses." 

It  was  the  girl,  apparently,  who  first  noticed 


The  Bottle-Green  Petticoat  41 

the  approach  of  danger.  ' '  She  stopped  as  we  were 
walking,"  he  says,  "and  flung  her  head  up  like  a 
young  deer  at  the  fringe  of  the  herd,  tossing  its  nose 
up  into  the  wind.  Then  she  just  said, '  Smoke ! ' ' 
David  describes  with  compelling  realism  the 
effect  upon  him  of  that  word,  of  the  scent  of  burn- 
ing which  the  next  moment  reached  his  nostrils, 
and  of  the  low  murmuring  sound,  like  many  voices, 
merged  in  anger  very  far  away,  that  came  to  his 
ears  from  the  bows  of  the  ship. 

"I  knew  that  instant,"  he  says,  "that  it  was 
my  heart  which  pumped  the  blood  through  my 
arteries  to  my  veins,  which  fed  my  brain,  and  re- 
corded itself  in  my  pulses.  For  that  moment  I  felt 
there  was  nothing  of  my  body  but  my  heart, 
pounding  in  midair  like  the  screw  of  the  ship 
lifted  out  of  the  water  and  whirling  in  space. 
Jonathan  looked  at  me,  sniffing  the  air.  Then  we 
heard  a  bell  go — a  bell  that  sounded  like  an  alarm- 
clock  gone  mad  and  jerking  you,  with  a  snatch  at 
your  spine,  out  of  the  midst  of  sleep.  The  next 
moment  a  tongue  of  flame,  just  like  a  ghost  that  had 
burst  its  way  out  of  prison,  leapt  out  of  the  com- 
panion-way right  up  for'ard,  and  an  instant  later 
the  deck  was  black  with  running  men.  And  all 


42  David  and  Jonathan 

the  time,  down  in  the  saloon,  we  could  hear  them 
discussing  the  last  hand  of  bridge,  while  the  next 
man  dealt  the  cards  for  a  new  rubber." 

It  was  Jonathan  who  acted  first.  David's  de- 
scription of  him  in  that  hour  or  so  which  followed 
is  filled  with  an  underlying  enthusiasm  of  admi- 
ration. Somewhere  down  in  his  cabin  there  was  a 
heavy  automatic  in  one  of  his  boxes.  Without  a 
moment's  hesitation,  he  had  vanished  down  the 
stairway  to  the  saloon  and  fetched  it  out,  coming  up 
on  deck  a  moment  later  with  the  weapon,  cocked, 
in  his  hand. 

"For  one  instant,"  says  David  here,  "there 
flashed  back  through  my  mind  the  things  Jon- 
athan had  said  in  my  rooms  in  the  Albany,  that 
day  when  I  was  packing.  'Where  you're  going,' 
he  had  said,  'there  are  no  symbols.  It's  the 
real  thing — the  real  instinct — the  real  impulse.' 
And  before  the  memory  of  the  words  had  crossed 
my  mind,  there  was  the  actual  picture  of  it, 
dramatized  in  living  fact  before  my  eyes.  Half  a 
dozen  Dagos,  coal-trimmers,  who  had  come  up 
with  that  crush  of  men,  mostly  the  crew,  from  the 
for'ard  part  of  the  ship,  had  rushed  one  of  the 


The  Bottle-Green  Petticoat  43 

boats.  Frantically,  like  men  tossed  in  a  gale  of 
wind,  as  their  primitive  emotions  swept  over 
them,  they  were  tugging  at  the  davits,  climbing 
into  the  boat,  and  taking  the  salvage  of  their  dirty 
lives  into  their  own  hands. 

"With  a  voice  of  thunder  and  an  eye  that 
sparkled  like  a  piece  of  steel  on  flint" — David 
was  stretching  out  for  his  similes  here — "he  told 
them  to  clear  the  boat.  He  raised  his  revolver  and 
showed  them  what  he  meant,  but  they  thought  he 
was  talking  the  sort  of  thick  air  you  get  out  of  the 
engine-room.  They  went  on.  They  began  lowering 
the  boat.  Then  Jonathan  shot  the  leader  of  them. 
Clean  through  his  head  the  bullet  went.  He  crum- 
pled up  like  a  coat  falling  off  a  clothes-peg,  and  the 
look  of  surprise  that  came  into  the  faces  of  the 
others  would  have  been  laughable  at  any  other 
time.  They  nipped  out  of  that  boat,  back  on  deck 
again,  just  like  so  many  black  beetles  out  of  a  trap." 

That  fire  on  board  the  Malaga  is  merely  an  in- 
cident in  this  story,  a  sign-post  marking  the  road 
by  which  these  two  came  to  that  situation,  wherein 
lies  the  purpose  of  this  tale.  Under  ordinary 
circumstances  I  would  not  attempt  to  describe  it. 
The  incident  in  itself  is  isolated,  an  event  to  be 


44  David  and  Jonathan 

seized  upon  by  such  as  have  a  taste  for  horrors  in 
public  places  without  knowing  anything  of  the 
real  tragedy  awaiting  some  person  or  persons  when 
the  news  is  brought  home.  Of  itself  that  burning 
of  the  Malaga  is  no  more  dramatic  than  the  acci- 
dental killing  of  a  stranger  in  the  street,  when  there 
is  blood  to  be  seen  and  excitement  to  be  felt,  with 
no  relation  to  the  actual  story  of  which  it  is  a 
part,  and  ceasing  to  be  interesting  directly  the  am- 
bulance has  come  along  and  carried  the  bleeding 
body  away. 

A  current  number  of  any  newspaper  of  that  date 
will  give  a  full  description  of  the  burning  of  the 
Malaga  in  true  and  impressive  journalese,  laying 
characteristic  stress  upon  all  those  incidents  by 
which  the  newspaper-reading  public  are  made 
acquainted  from  day  to  day  with  the  ugliness  of 
life  from  suicide,  murder,  and  sudden  death  to  the 
unsavoury  details  of  divorce. 

I  am  omitting,  therefore,  a  considerable  amount 
of  the  detail  upon  which  David  has  exercised  his 
literary  ambitions — in  whom  it  was  to  be  excused, 
seeing  how  vivid  those  details  must  have  remained 
in  his  mind — because  the  mere  fact  that  these  two 
were  cast  adrift  is  sufficient  for  my  purpose.  It  is 
enough  to  say  here  that  in  two  hours  the  Malaga 


The  Bottle-Green  Petticoat  45 

from  stem  to  stern  was  a  flaming  beacon  upon  the 
highway  of  the  ocean,  and  that  within  that  time 
not  a  soul  was  left  aboard. 

One  point,  however,  of  undeniable  interest  there 
was  in  all  David's  lengthy  description  of  it,  and 
that,  his  first  realization  of  those  primitive  in- 
stincts in  the  human  animal,  and  how,  the  lower 
one  went  in  the  scale  of  civilization,  the  easier  it 
became  to  break  through  the  veneer  to  the  ele- 
mental passions  beneath. 

"I  saw  people,"  he  says,  "taking  it  well  enough 
for  the  first  hour,  but  whose  power  of  control 
broke  down  at  length  under  the  strain  of  waiting 
for  their  release  from  that  relentless  furnace.  All 
their  civilized  instincts  went  from  them,  leaking 
out  like  water  from  a  cup  that  is  cracked.  The 
expression  of  lower  and  more  unbridled  purposes  of 
life  crept  gradually  into  their  faces.  In  the  end 
they  became  less  than  human.  The  ideals  of  civil- 
ization had  lost  their  hold.  Primitive  instincts 
took  their  place.  You  could  almost  tell  from 
the  look  in  the  eyes  that  moment  when  the 
breaking-point  had  come.  It  was  terrible  to 
watch  it,  yet  surely  enough  it  was  plain  to  be 
seen." 


46  David  and  Jonathan 

Of  the  few  illuminating  instances  David  men- 
tions in  support  of  his  observations,  I  firmly  be- 
lieve it  best  to  give  no  details.  The  contention  of 
this  tale  is  fully  borne  out  by  the  more  human 
situation  which  was  an  outcome  of  that  tragic 
disaster.  There  is  no  need  to  frill  it  with  the 
ghastly  incidents  connected  with  the  tragedy  of 
that  ill-fated  ship. 

The  storm  which  had  been  closing  about  them 
the  whole  of  that  day,  seemed  to  have  been  wait- 
ing for  such  a  moment  as  this.  No  sooner  were 
the  boats  launched  than,  with  all  its  fury,  it  burst 
upon  them. 

With  considerable  reserve,  characteristic  of  that 
critical  judgment  he  passed  upon  the  value  of 
all  his  actions,  David  says  little  of  what  he  did 
himself  in  the  stress  of  those  terrible  circumstances. 
Jonathan's  conduct  during  those  two  hours,  until 
the  boats  were  all  cleared,  he  describes  with  the 
enthusiasm  which  one  man  must  always  feel  for 
the  brute  strength  of  one  physically  superior  to 
himself.  Again  and  again,  it  appears,  he  went 
down  into  the  cabins  where  the  smoke  of  the  burn- 
ing ship  was  already  suffocating  the  passengers, 
and  brought  back  some  woman  or  child  uncon- 
scious in  his  arms. 


The  Bottle-Green  Petticoat  47 

"His  strength,"  says  David,  "seemed  to  be 
the  strength  of  a  beast  at  bay,  and  he  was  swear- 
ing all  the  time."  A  sentence  or  two  later  he 
adds — "Hiked  the  sound  of  those  oaths  from  him, 
but  they  were  no  use  to  me." 

That  indeed,  knowing  David  as  well  as  I  did, 
I  can  well  imagine.  I  can  see  his  lips  grown  thin 
and  set  in  a  firm  line.  Of  those  two,  with  his 
quicker  mentality,  he  would  have  looked  the  facts 
more  squarely  in  the  face,  been  more  conscious  of 
danger,  have  had  need  for  the  greater  exercise  of 
control,  and,  had  sharp  decision  of  mind  been 
needed  at  any  given  moment,  would  have  been 
the  more  capable  of  the  two  to  supply  it. 

There  is  just  one  incident  which  he  mentions  con- 
cerning himself  I  cannot  omit,  and  from  which  it 
may  be  assumed — though  that  is  far  from  his  in- 
tention— that  he  himself  was  by  no  means  idle 
while  Jonathan  was  displaying  that  strength  of  the 
beast  at  bay.  His  own  description  of  it  is  best. 

"One  woman  I  found,"  he  writes,  and  cannot 
thereby  help  himself  in  implying  there  were  others 
he  saved,  "who  was  lying  unconscious  behind  the 
piano  in  the  saloon.  It  was  pretty  obvious  what 


48  David  and  Jonathan 

had  happened.  She  had  been  playing  the  piano 
when  the  first  alarm  of  fire  came  through  to  the 
saloon  passengers.  The  shock  of  that  alarm  had 
bowled  her  over.  She  had  fainted  and  then  been 
forgotten  in  the  general  rush  to  the  boats.  Look- 
ing round  the  saloon,  in  the  state  of  mind  we  were 
all  in  then,  it  might  easily  have  been  supposed  the 
place  was  empty.  I  just  happened  to  catch  sight 
of  the  edge  of  her  petticoat  by  the  leg  of  the  piano." 

It  was  characteristic  of  David  that  he  should 
remember  the  colour  of  that  petticoat  and  think 
to  describe  it  as  "that  sort  of  bottle-green  in- 
dicating the  taste  of  a  woman  who  will  not  put  up 
with  the  first  shade  that  is  handed  to  her.  A  lot  of 
good  her  taste  in  colours  was  to  her  then ! " 

It  is  obvious  from  this  how  much  better  it  is 
for  me  to  let  David  tell  his  story  whenever  I 
can.  I  should  never  have  dreamed  of  such  a 
description. 

"She  was  a  woman  of  about  twenty-five/' 
he  continues.  "I  had  not  seen  her  before;  not 
even  at  Teneriffe,  so  I  presume  she  must  have  been 
feeling  pretty  rotten  those  first  few  days  out. 
This  was  evidently  her  first  appearance,  and  a 


The  Bottle-Green  Petticoat  49 

sorry  sort  of  one  to  have  made.  For  that  appear- 
ance, she  had  evidently  considered  with  no  little 
care, — I  am  thinking  of  the  bottle-green  petti- 
coat,— and  there  she  lay,  unconscious  on  the 
floor,  her  hair  and  her  dress  all  disarranged  by 
the  fall,  and  looking  as  helpless  as  any  human 
being  I  had  ever  seen  in  my  life. 

"I  whipped  her  up  in  my  arms.  There  was  no 
time  to  waste.  Even  in  that  unconscious  con- 
dition she  was  a  beautiful  creature  to  look  at,  and 
I  have  no  shame  in  saying  it  that,  as  she  lay  in  my 
arms,  the  thought  flashed  across  my  mind  how  at 
any  other  time,  my  heart  would  have  been  beating 
somewhat  the  faster  were  I  to  find  myself  in  such 
a  predicament. 

"I  carried  her  on  deck  as  quickly  as  I  could. 
She  was  no  light  weight,  and  I  was  staggering  when 
I  reached  the  boats.  There  Jonathan  saw  me  and 
gave  a  hand.  He  lifted  her  like  a  feather, — though 
he  had  been  working  hard  for  more  than  an  hour 
then, — and  I  could  not  help  noticing  how  little 
sensation  that  helpless  body  of  a  woman  in  his  arms 
brought  to  him.  He  just  lifted  her  as  though  she 
were  a  dead-weighted  sack  of  flour,  and  passed  her 
along  to  one  of  the  sailors  in  the  boats,  never 
noticing  her  face,  only  concerned  with  the  sal- 


50  David  and  Jonathan 

vage  of  life,  just  as  if  it  were  no  more  than  mere 
cargo. 

'"  Just  drop  her  down  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat,' 
he  shouted.  'She's  unconscious — she  won't  feel 
anything.  Push  her  along  there,  more  for'ard, 
and  make  way  for  these  kids. ' 

"I  looked  over  the  taffrail,"  says  David,  "as 
the  boat  was  lowered,  and  there  she  lay  with  her 
white  face,  while  some  water  that  had  somehow 
got  into  the  boat  swilled  backwards  and  forwards 
over  her  bottle-green  petticoat.  And  seeing  all 
that,  in  some  sort  of  way,  too,  as  though  I  were 
saying  good-bye  to  her,  I  remember  hearing  myself 
mutter  under  my  breath  as  I  watched  the  boat 
settling  into  the  sea:  'Well — I've  had  you  in  my 
arms,  my  dear, '  and  then  I  laughed  at  the  folly  of 
the  thoughts  that  caper  in  your  mind  when  you 
are  standing  face  to  face  with  death." 


CHAPTER   VI 

MAROONED 

O  WEPT  about  at  the  mercy  of  the  storm  on  the 
S^  little  ship's  raft  to  which  they  had  lashed 
themselves,  those  two  were  facing  death  all  that 
night,  the  next  day,  and  again  for  another  night 
until  the  dawn  broke  on  the  following  morning. 
During  the  whole  of  that  time,  with  the  sea  that 
was  running,  they  saw  nothing  of  the  other 
boats. 

"We  knew,"  David  writes,  "that  there  could 
have  been  but  little  hope  of  their  keeping  together 
in  that  storm.  Nearly  all  of  them  had  been  over- 
full, for  somehow  or  other  these  big  companies 
never  provide  adequate  boat-room  for  the  full 
extent  of  their  passenger  accommodation,  and  the 
Malaga,  that  trip,  had  not  one  empty  berth. 
Jonathan  told  me  we  stood  a  better  chance  of 
being  picked  up  than  any  one  of  those  boats 

51 


52  David  and  Jonathan 

if  only  the  running  of  the  sea  kept  us  some- 
where in  route  of  ships  making  that  passage  to 
Forcados." 

But  such  luck  as  this  did  not  come  their  way. 
Before  the  dawn  broke  on  that  second  morning, 
they  became  conscious  of  a  growing  murmur,  ever 
increasing  in  volume,  in  their  ears  until,  before  the 
light  had  come  to  show  them  their  approaching 
fate,  they  knew  they  had  been  swept  for  two  days 
towards  the  shore,  and  soon  would  be  in  the  very 
teeth  of  those  relentless  lines  of  breakers  rolling 
in,  mile  upon  mile,  upon  that  African  coast. 

Jonathan  looked  at  David  as  the  first  muted 
murmur  of  that  thunder  reached  their  ears. 

4 'Hear  that?  "said  he. 

David  thought  it  was  thunder  out  of  the  storm, 
but  Jonathan  shook  his  head.  He  had  heard  that 
sound  too  often  to  make  any  mistake  about  it. 
In  those  two  days,  they  must  have  drifted  eight 
or  even  ten  miles.  The  coast  line  as  last  they  had 
seen  it,  three  days  before,  from  the  deck  of  the 
Malaga  had  been  a  violet  fringe  to  the  sea's 
horizon.  Doubtless  since  then  they  had  made  a 
course  nearer  shore  than  that,  but  it  was  a  danger 
even  Jonathan  had  not  appreciated  until  he  heard 
the  low,  ominous  note,  singing  of  almost  certain 


Marooned  53 

death  when  still  a  hope  of  being  picked  up  had 
kept  their  spirits  high. 

"We  shall  have  to  cut  these  lashings,"  he  said. 
"We  can't  be  shackled  to  this.  We  shall  have  to 
trust  to  our  belts — because  it'll  need  the  strength 
of  something  out  of  hell  to  get  through  those 
breakers." 

To  David  such  a  course  sounded  like  madness. 

"We  owed  our  lives  to  that  little  raft,"  he  says. 
"Not  all  the  belts  in  the  mercantile  marine  would 
have  kept  me  up  in  such  a  sea  for  two  days.  But 
when  the  morning  broke,  without  a  cloud  in  the 
sky,  washed  a  pale  blue  after  that  storm,  and  I 
saw  the  sun  shining  on  those  fields  of  foam,  not 
more  than  a  mile  away,  I  realized  then  what 
Jonathan  meant  about  shackles.  We  were  going 
to  be  battered  to  pieces  anyway,  and  needed  all 
the  freedom  of  body  we  could  get." 

There  follows  here  in  his  papers  a  description 
of  their  last  moments  together,  when  they  talked 
about  their  chances,  and  Jonathan  gave  David  the 
best  advice  he  could.  Following  that,  and  after 
the  first  wave  caught  them,  I  can  quite  under- 
stand he  realized  nothing  but  a  roaring  confusion, 
losing  consciousness  at  last  in  those  tossing  waters 


54  David  and  Jonathan 

that  flung  them  about  like  matchwood  as  they 
were  hurled  towards  the  shore. 

He  describes  his  return  to  consciousness  ac- 
companied by  the  realization  that  he  was  lying  on 
a  stretch  of  sand,  warm  like  bed-linen  out  of  the 
hot-press  with  the  heat  of  that  tropical  sun ;  solid 
and  restful — these  are  his  similes — like  a  good 
hard  mattress  after  three  months  of  a  hammock. 
They  are  homely  similes,  no  doubt,  but  they  will 
convey  much  to  the  reader  who  still  appreciates 
the  comfort  of  his  own  bed.  In  addition  to  these 
facts,  he  became  simultaneously  aware  that  Jona- 
than was  standing  over  him,  watching  his  recovery 
with  a  broad  smile  of  satisfaction  on  his  face. 

It  may  fairly  easily  be  supposed  that  hunger 
was  almost  the  next  stage  of  consciousness. 
Jonathan,  apparently,  was  prepared  for  this.  He 
had  had  his  own  experiences ;  had  known  his  own 
sensations  when  first,  in  possession  of  all  his  facul- 
ties, he  felt  the  solid  ground  under  his  feet.  It 
had  been  the  need  of  something  in  the  way  of  food 
to  put  in  his  stomach.  What  is  more,  he  had 
found  it. 

They  had  been  cast  up  on  a  stretch  of  sand,  four, 
perhaps  as  much  as  six  miles  in  length,  a  margin  of 
pure  gold  to  a  belt  of  tropical  forest.  This  forest 


Marooned  55 

began  with  swampy  land  out  of  which  rose  the 
spear-heads  of  giant  rushes  then  growing  into  the 
dense  vegetation  of  bamboo  and  mangrove  trees, 
rising  like  a  dense  green  wall,  as  though  to  shut 
out  the  mysteries  of  a  whole  continent  from  the 
eyes  of  a  curious  world.  The  margin  of  sand 
might  have  been  a  quarter  of  a  mile  wide  in  places. 
Its  depth  varied  considerably.  It  was,  however,  a 
clear  stretch  and  in  that  brilliant  atmosphere  about 
a  mile  from  where  Jonathan  was  washed  ashore, 
he  saw  pieces  of  wreckage  lying  high  and  dry. 

Nothing  was  more  obvious  than  what  it  must 
be.  A  ship's  boat  had  shared  their  fate,  possibly 
with  as  much  good  fortune  as  themselves.  There 
might  be  some  alive.  He  first  attended  to  David, 
and  then  went  off  to  see  what  was  to  be  found. 
Bodies  had  been  washed  up,  but  not  one  had  a 
breath  of  life  in  it.  There  were  two  boats.  Both 
had  been  broken  to  matchwood  in  the  grinding 
rollers  of  the  surf.  He  came  back  to  where  David 
was  lying,  bringing  two  tins  of  biscuits,  some  of 
them  untouched  by  salt  water,  and  there,  on  the 
warm  sand,  in  the  fresh  heat  of  the  sun,  he  had 
his  first  meal  for  two  days,  thanking — whatever 
powers  a  man  does  thank — for  his  own  common 
sense  that  he  had  slipped  a  flask  of  brandy  into 


56  David  and  Jonathan 

one  of  his  pockets  when  he  had  gone  below  to 
get  his  heavy  automatic. 

It  was  to  the  taste  of  this  blessed  liquid  that 
David  returned  to  life,  and  after  a  while  sat  up  to 
eat  the  portion  which  Jonathan  allowed  him. 

"Two  tins,"  he  said;  "there  may  be  some  more 
— but  that's  all  we  know  of.  So  don't  imagine 
you're  dining  at  the  '  Ritz '  with  the  full  prospect 
of  supper  later  at  the  'Savoy.'" 

"I  wouldn't  have  minded  dining  at  the  'Ritz,'" 
says  David  in  his  papers,  "but  it  could  not  have 
brought  me  as  great  a  sense  of  satisfaction  as  that 
feeling  of  solid  ground  and  the  hot  sand  burning 
through  my  drenched  clothes  and  warming  the  deep- 
est marrow  in  my  bones.  To  get  as  great  a  sense  of 
gratitude  from  dining  at  the '  Ritz '  one  would  have 
had  to  have  been  held  up  for  an  hour  in  a  fog  out- 
side Clapham  Junction.  I  had  been  for  two  days  in 
the  grip  of  the  sea.  That  hot  sandy  beach  seemed 
the  most  appropriate  satisfaction  I  could  want. 
After  three  biscuits  and  another  sip  of  brandy,  I  lay 
back  on  that — bed  of  roses,  looked  up  at  the  blaze 
of  blue,  and  thought  of  the  times  I'd  cursed  in  Lon- 
don when  there  wasn't  a  taxi  on  the  rank  in  Picca- 
dilly to  take  me  down  to  the  '  Carlton '  for  a  meal." 


Marooned  57 

Of  the  two  days  which  followed  on  that  beach, 
when  at  night  they  slept  under  the  stars,  covered 
by  the  one  blanket  they  had  found  and  some  of  the 
clothes  they  had  taken  from  the  occupants  of  the 
wrecked  ship's  boats,  there  is  not  much  of  interest 
to  be  told.  Only  one  alternative  lay  open  to  them : 
to  explore  that  dense  forest  barrier  which  lay  be- 
tween them  and  the  mainland.  The  sandy  beach 
ended,  as  I  have  indicated,  after  about  five  or  six 
miles.  Upon  that  strip  of  innocent,  golden  sand, 
they  were  as  much  prisoners  as  if  unscalable  walls 
surrounded  them  on  either  side.  There  was  in- 
deed the  wall  of  the  wide  sea  on  the  one  hand  and 
upon  the  other  this  treacherous-looking  swamp, 
merging  into  tropical  forest. 

Here,  on  the  first  day,  they  found  the  apparent 
aperture  of  a  channel  through  the  rushes,  leading 
into  the  heart  of  the  upper-growth.  With  all  the 
spurious  energy  that  comes  to  a  man  eager  for 
discovery,  and  with  no  experience  of  the  dangers  or 
difficulties  entailed,  David  was  for  starting  upon 
the  expedition  at  onc^.  They  had  got  their  raft 
ashore.  If  that  had  borne  them  on  the  open  sea, 
he  thought  it  surely  capable  of  tackling  a  journey 
in  still  and  almost  sluggish  water. 

"All  right,"  said  Jonathan,  "but  we'll  go  to- 


58  David  and  Jonathan 

morrow.  If  I'd  got  a  mirror,  I'd  show  you  the 
look  in  your  eyes.  You  want  a  bit  of  sleep. 
We'll  stop  on  the  beach  today  and  see  if  anything 
more  gets  washed  up.  Tomorrow's  time  enough 
to  start  on  that  trip." 

So  they  stayed  on  the  beach  another  day  and 
night.  Some  reward  for  that  the  sea  brought 
them ;  an  oilskin  and  two  more  bodies — men.  In 
the  pocket  of  one  was  a  steel  and  flint  lighter  with 
the  tinder-cord,  sodden,  but  still  capable  of  being 
ignited  when  dry.  There  was  a  pipe  and  some 
tobacco  in  a  pouch,  also  a  sovereign  case  contain- 
ing six  pounds. 

Jonathan  took  a  sovereign  out  and  offered  it  to 
David. 

"Give you  a  quid,"  he  said,  "if  you  find  another 
tin  of  biscuits." 

David  looked  at  him. 

"I  wondered,"  he  says,  "if  the  exertions  and 
dangers  of  the  past  three  days  had  for  the  moment 
slipped  his  reason. 

"'I'd  find  'em  for  nothing  if  I  could,'  said  I. 

"And  then  he  laughed  and  told  me  I  was 
coming  by  my  first  appreciation  of  the  value  of 
money." 

In  the  pockets  of  the  other  man's  coat  they  found 


Marooned  59 

cigarettes — unsmokable — a  gold  cigar-cutter,  a 
gold  tooth-pick,  a  gold  nail-clipper,  and  a  gold  knife 
with  steel  blades.  David  held  them  up  on  the 
end  of  a  gold  chain  and  roared  with  laughter. 

' '  These  are  the  sort  of  things  we  carry  about  with 
us  through  life, — the  serviceable  presents  they  sell 
in  Bond  Street — and  when  you  really  come  to  living, 
they're  not  as  valuable  as  a  packet  of  pins.  A 
packet  of  pins  would  be  worth  twice  as  much  to  us." 

"There's  the  knife,"  said  Jonathan. 

David  opened  it.  It  was  the  only  article  in  the 
bunch  which  obviously  had  never  been  used. 

"It  was  that  night,"  writes  David,  "as  we  lay 
down  on  the  beach  to  go  to  sleep,  that  I  first  put  the 
question  which  had  been  running  in  my  head  ever 
since  I  had  wakened  that  morning  to  a  full  realiza- 
tion that  it  was  no  dream,  that  there  we  were  on 
that  desolate  coast  and  must  make  the  best  of  it. 

"First  of  all  I  asked  Jonathan  where  he  thought 
we  were. 

"'Judging  by  the  coast  line,'  said  he,  'these 
swamps  and  forests,  and  the  general  look  of  it, 
somewhere  on  the  Ivory  Coast,  perhaps  two  or 
three  hundred  miles  from  Monrovia,  the  capital  of 
Liberia.' 


6o  David  and  Jonathan 

"We  talked  in  a  desultory  fashion  then  for  a  few 
moments  about  that  queer  little  nigger  state,  with 
its  Gilbert  and  Sullivan  Republic.  Jonathan  had 
been  there  and  had  much  that  was  amusing  to  tell 
me  about  it.  But  I  wasn't  amused  just  then.  I 
was  thinking  of  the  one  thing  I  really  wanted  to 
hear  from  him,  with  the  experience  he  had  of 
travelling  in  that  part  of  the  world.  I  suppose  he 
knew  I  was  going  to  ask  it,  because  in  some  sub- 
conscious sort  of  way,  I  felt  he  was  doing  his 
best  to  give  me  no  opportunity.  However,  I  got  it 
in  at  last  without  seeming  as  if  I  minded  a  two- 
penny cuss  one  way  or  the  other. 

"  'What  chance,'  said  I,  'do  you  think  there  is 
of  our  getting  out  of  this  ? ' 

"  '  Being  picked  up  by  a  boat  ? '  said  he. 

1 '  I  grunted  an  affirmative. 

'"The  remotest,'  he  replied.  'They  don't 
come  in  near  the  coast  for  another  two  or  three 
hundred  miles.  The  Malaga  was  closer  in  than 
most.' 

'"Then  what  chance ?' 

' '  'Through  that  forest ? '  he  interrupted. 

"  I  nodded  my  head. 

4  * '  Not  the  chance  of  a  dog, '  said  he. ' ' 


CHAPTER  VII 


SWISS  FAMILY  ROBINSON" 


TT  ERE  I  am  taking  long  extracts  from  David's 
papers  for  that  voyage  of  exploration  of  theirs 
through  the  swamp  and  the  heart  of  the  forest; 
leaving  it  entirely  to  his  words  to  describe  what 
they  found  there.  I  have  only  edited  the  various 
passages  I  have  chosen,  where  it  has  seemed  to  me 
that  David  lost  the  thread  of  narrative  in  too  great 
an  affection  for  description  of  their  surroundings. 

"The  channel  opened  wide  enough  at  the  end  of 
a  sort  of  gully  to  the  sea.  The  first  hundred  yards 
or  so  were  through  the  swamp  and  that  deep 
fringe  of  what  I  can  only  describe  as  sea-grass,  but 
tall  and  strong  in  the  stem  as  the  toughest  of  young 
bamboo.  Progress  was  slow,  however,  as  we  were 
paddling  with  the  broken  blade-end  of  an  oar 
washed  up  with  one  of  the  ship's  boats.  The 
further  we  went  into  the  maze  of  that  swamp,  the 

61 


62  David  and  Jonathan 

darker,  the  more  silent  and  unhealthy  looking  it 
became.  The  sound  of  the  breaking  sea  became 
more  and  more  distant.  After  a  time  the  rustle 
of  wind  in  the  grass  tops  above  our  heads  almost 
shut  it  out;  another  hundred  yards  and  so  dense 
was  the  vegetation  about  us  that  we  heard  it  no 
more. 

"We  talked  a  good  deal  at  first,  but  when  I 
found  the  sound  of  my  voice  hitting  as  it  were 
against  that  wall  before  me  and  coming  back 
into  my  face  with  an  eerie,  whispered  echo  of 
what  seemed  its  natural  tone,  I  gave  it  up,  and 
we  went  on  in  silence.  Occasionally  Jonathan 
would  speak,  pointing  out  the  filthy  track  of 
a  crocodile  through  the  swamp;  occasionally  the 
silence  would  be  broken  by  the  oily  noise  of  a 
water-snake  dropping  into  the  water  before  us  and 
swimming  into  the  dark  forest  of  the  green  stems 
across  our  path. 

"At  last,  however,  the  character  of  it  all  began 
to  change.  We  came  to  bigger  stuff  and  more 
interesting  than  that  monotonous  grass.  Here 
even  the  colour  of  vegetable  life  became  more 
varied.  We  could  see  above  our  heads  the  deeper 
green  of  the  feathery  palm,  while  here  and  there, 
where  light  crept  through  the  higher  branches, 


"Swiss  Family  Robinson'*  63 

there  might  be  caught  a  splash  of  crimson,  a  flame 
of  blue  from  the  flowering  orchids  finding  their 
way  out  towards  the  sun. 

"At  last,  when  we  came  to  the  forest  kings,  the 
mahogany,  and  other  hardwood  trees,  there  was 
still  more  air  to  breathe,  more  light  to  see  by. 
Here,  up  in  the  higher  branches,  we  could  see  the 
troupes  of  monkeys  following  us  from  one  tree  to 
another,  along  their  natural  highway,  as  easily  as 
motoring  on  the  Great  North  Road.  And  not 
monkeys  only  on  that  broad  pathway  of  the  forest, 
but  little  tree-bears,  standing  on  branches  and 
gazing  down  at  us,  then  hurrying  on  in  our  track 
lest  they  should  lose  sight  of  those  two  strange 
animals  below,  trespassing  in  their  country,  where 
never  the  face  of  man  had  been  seen  before." 

I  was  interested  by  the  following  description 
which  David  gives  of  his  impression  of  that  troupe 
of  monkeys  and  those  silently  inquisitive  bears. 

"They  were  just  like  a  crowd  of  street  arabs," 
he  says,  "but  seeming  to  me  to  be  closer  to  life, 
and  more  warranted  in  their  curiosity.  I  did  not 
resent  them.  I  felt  they  far  more  had  a  right  to 
resent  me.  And  every  yard  we  propelled  that 


64  David  and  Jonathan 

old  raft  further  into  the  forest,  it  seemed  as  if  we 
were  getting  nearer  to  the  secret  of  all  things, 
which  they  knew  and  were  jealously  afraid  of  our 
discovering.  How  near  we  were  indeed  getting," 
he  adds,  "to  some  new  knowledge  of  life,  of  the 
things  that  are  and  which  no  civilization  can  de- 
stroy, perhaps  they  may  have  known.  Certain  it 
is  we  had  not  a  thought  of  it  then." 

There  follows  after  this  in  his  script  some  need- 
less, though  possibly  natural,  digression  about  the 
language  of  monkeys.  I  can  understand  the 
thoughts  of  one,  seeing  these  creatures  in  their  wild 
state  for  the  first  time,  setting  towards  such  specu- 
lations on  the  origin  of  language  as  seemed  vitally 
interesting  to  him.  It  does  not  concern  our  story. 

Neither  shall  I  take  any  notice  of  his  wild  tales, 
derived  from  the  supply  of  Jonathan's  informa- 
tion, about  some  sort  of  sea-lion,  called  the  Mani- 
ton,  which  lives  in  the  swampland  and  feeds  in  the 
dark.  According  to  Jonathan,  the  female  species 
has  a  kind  of  human-shaped  head,  with  the  shoul- 
ders and  breasts  of  a  woman,  and  flappers  instead 
of  arms.  He  told  David  that  it  was  a  fact — and 
certainly  I  do  not  see  him  as  one  given  to  imagina- 
tive stories — that  no  native  looks  on  its  face  and 


•'Swiss  Family  Robinson"  65 

lives.  This  of  course  gives  David  scope  for  any 
amount  of  picturesque  theorizing  which,  interesting 
though  it  was,  does  not,  with  the  exigencies  of  the 
story,  permit  of  repetition. 

I  just  mention  it  because  of  the  circumstances 
which  occasioned  Jonathan's  reference  to  the  exist- 
ence of  this  strange  beast  whose  name  certainly  is 
absolutely  unfamiliar  to  me.  The  circumstances 
were  these,  and  I  draw  from  David's  script  again 
to  describe  them. 

"For  an  hour  or  more,"  he  writes,  "we  had 
made  our  way  through  the  forest,  where  sometimes 
what  looked  like  the  great  root  of  a  gigantic  tree 
became  a  live  thing,  an  eight-foot  crocodile, 
slithering  down  into  the  water  and  lying  in  the 
black  depths  to  continue  its  sleep.  Then,  al- 
most in  a  moment,  the  forest  ended.  We  drifted 
into  an  open  swamp  again,  with  tall  elephant- 
grass  rising  high  above  our  heads,  but  filtering  in 
a  greater  wealth  of  light." 

This  was  the  point  in  his  narrative  where  Jon- 
athan spoke  of  the  haunt  of  the  Maniton,  and 
David  went  off  at  a  tangent  into  his  digression. 

"As  suddenly  as  that  swamp  began,"  he  goes 
on,  "it  suddenly  ended.  We  came  out  into  the 

5 


66  David  and  Jonathan 

bright  light  of  the  sun  once  more,  and  there  was  a 
beautiful  sandy  beach,  about  sixty  feet  wide, 
beyond  which  rose  a  rocky  bluff,  sheer  up  from  the 
sand,  at  least  as  high  as  the  highest  mahogany 
tree." 

Here  Jonathan  apparently  looked  well  about 
him,  at  the  gradual  slope  on  one  side  of  that  little 
bay  where  banana  trees,  ground  nuts,  and  toma- 
toes all  grew  in  a  lavish  profusion,  and  the  evi- 
dences of  orange  trees  and  wild  yams  were  to  be 
seen  everywhere.  He  went  across  to  the  foot  of 
the  rocky  bluff,  and  there,  finding  water  dripping 
from  one  of  the  fissures  in  meagre  drops,  he  put 
his  finger  on  the  place,  then  laid  it  on  his  tongue. 

After  that,  he  turned  round  to  David. 

"This  place,"  said  he,  "is  where  you  and  I  will 
have  to  live  for  the  Lord  knows  how  long." 

"After  the  toiling  through  that  forest  and  those 
two  nights  on  the  sea,"  says  David,  "I  couldn't 
have  asked  for  a  better  prospect.  Considering 
such  experiences  as  we  had  had,  the  whole  at- 
mosphere of  the  place  seemed  to  suggest  a  haven 
of  refuge. 

"I  suppose  I  had  not  taken  seriously  either  his 
answers  to  my  questions  of  the  night  before,  or  the 
remark  he  had  just  made  about  the  period  of  time 


••Swiss  Family  Robinson"  67 

we  were  likely  to  be  compelled  to  make  this  our 
corner  of  the  world.  There  was  sunlight  and 
warmth;  such  sunlight  and  warmth  as,  after  an 
English  climate,  must  have  demanded  the  highest 
spirits. 

"  Perhaps  it  was  I  could  never  have  believed  we 
were  prisoners  in  that  place;  prisoners  as  surely  as 
though  it  had  been  a  little  island  in  the  midst 
of  unfrequented  seas .  The  immediate  prospect  was 
sufficient  for  me.  Instead  of  black  corpses,  swollen 
and  floating  on  the  face  of  the  waters,  we  were  two 
hearty  men  and  strong,  the  sun  was  shining,  and 
here  was  a  spot,  surrounded  with  all  kinds  of 
vegetation,  which  seemed  to  be  cut  out  for  a 
dwelling-place.  Doubtless,  notwithstanding  Jon- 
athan's belief,  I  may  have  reckoned  escape  was  to 
be  found  that  way.  But  added  to  it  all,  after  the 
circumscribed  conditions  of  London  life,  there  was 
the  exhilarating  freedom  of  adventure  about  every 
moment  of  it. 

"  I  only  know  I  looked  up  at  Jonathan  when, 
with  somewhat  of  a  despondent  note  in  his  voice, 
he  had  made  that  announcement,  and  I  replied, 
'Well — hang  it  all — we've  both  read  Robinson 
Crusoe  and  Swiss  Family  Robinson  and  made  pre- 
tence of  playing  at  them,  if  I  remember  my  youth 


68  David  and  Jonathan 

as  well  as  I  ought.  Dash  it,  last  year  in  London, 
when  that  week  of  fogs  was  on,  I'd  have  given  a 
thousand  quid  to  be  transported  to  a  place  like 
this  and  told  to  shift  for  myself.' 

"Jonathan  nodded  his  head,  saying,  'Right 
you  are' — but  the  tone  in  his  voice  implied, 
'there's  such  a  thing  as  transportation  for  life.' 

' '  One  did  not  often  hear  that  note  in  his  voice. 
I  know  now  that  he  was  speaking  from  a  wider 
knowledge  of  the  conditions  than  my  own.  But 
even  his  knowledge  did  not  embrace  that  most 
important  condition  with  which  we  found  our  lives 
were  to  be  so  intimately  concerned." 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE  "MALAGA'S"  BOAT 

FNAVID'S  allusion  to  Swiss  Family  Robinson  was 
^~^  evidently  made  because  that  aspect  of  it  ap- 
pealed to  his  lively  imagination.  He  follows  in  his 
narrative  with  page  after  page,  descriptive  of  their 
preparations  in  that  secluded  creek  to  make  a  home 
for  themselves — a  base  as  it  were  for  operations 
of  discovery  of  that  path  to  freedom  whenever  it 
might  present  itself. 

Jonathan  had  said  they  might  take  it  they  would 
be  there  for  some  weeks  before  any  chance  of 
escape  offered.  The  first  task,  therefore,  to  which 
they  set  themselves  was  to  build  some  sort  of 
habitation  ensuring  them  shelter  and  sleep  at 
night,  as  well  as  security  from  stray  beasts, 
such  as  leopards  amongst  those  rocks,  or  crocodiles 
coming  up  out  of  the  swamp. 

I  can  well  understand  it  was  a  lively  business, 
this  making  a  home  for  themselves,  rather  than 

69 


70  David  and  Jonathan 

going  to  the  nearest  house  agent  to  inquire  what 
residential  quarters  he  had  vacant  on  his  books. 
Judging  by  the  space  he  gives  to  the  account  of 
what  they  did  those  first  three  days,  David  must 
have  given  his  whole  heart  to  it.  The  erection  of  a 
palisade  to  keep  out  the  crocodiles  from  the  swamp ; 
the  starting  of  a  bonfire  at  dusk  to  drive  away 
mosquitoes  and  any  prowling  leopard  that  might 
chance  to  be  attracted  by  the  sounds  of  life  in  those 
still  places ;  the  building  of  a  temporary  hut  with  a 
roofing  of  broad  banana  leaves,  stitched  together 
with  the  pins  of  bamboo  spikes,  all  these  perform- 
ances he  dilates  upon  with  a  wealth  of  detail  which 
makes  him  a  plagiarist  of  the  very  book  he  mentions. 

It  was  on  the  third  day,  when,  so  to  speak,  they 
had  established  themselves  in  their  new  home 
and  David's  hands  were  too  blistered  to  do  any 
more  work,  that  Jonathan  proclaimed  the  necessity 
for  a  course  of  action  ensuring  them  every  oppor- 
tunity for  securing  their  escape. 

"We  shall  have  to  scramble  through  that  forest 
again,  back  to  the  beach,"  said  he.  "We  shall 
have  to  set  up  a  sort  of  distress  signal  in  the  hope  of 
some  devil  putting  up  his  glasses  in  this  direction 
from  a  passing  ship.  Now  we've  got  a  base  to 
work  from,  that's  the  first  precaution." 


The  "Malaga's"  Boat  71 

They  went,  as  before,  on  their  raft,  lifting  it  out 
of  the  water  here  and  there,  where  the  tangle  of 
tree  roots  or  the  undergrowth  barred  their  passage. 
With  no  little  difficulty,  marking  their  way  as  they 
went,  they  came,  after  about  three  hours'  hard 
going,  to  the  beach  where  the  breakers  were  rolling 
in  on  to  the  shore. 

With  the  fine  weather  they  had  had  during  those 
last  five  days,  the  sea  had  taken  a  surface  of  azure- 
coloured  glass;  the  tall  grasses  were  listless  in  the 
still  air,  and  the  fields  of  surf  were  no  longer 
ploughed  with  foam.  Lazily,  one  after  the  other, 
the  waves  came  rolling  in,  but  the  sting  of  the 
storm  had  gone  out  of  them. 

' '  They  were  inviting  now, ' '  says  David.  ' '  Their 
roar  of  anger  had  become  a  song.  I  thought  of  my 
piano  at  home  and  the  key  I  could  set  their  music  in . " 

"We  had  brought  with  us,"  he  continues,  "a 
long  bamboo  pole.  It  must  have  been  thirty  or 
forty  feet  in  length.  This  was  to  be  used  as  a 
flagstaff  for  our  signal  of  distress.  A  poor  make- 
shift it  was,  not  intended  to  be  permanent,  but 
Jonathan  would  waste  no  day,  he  said,  or  leave  an 
effort  unmade  to  attract  the  attention  of  any  ship, 
however  distant,  that  might  be  passing.  He  was 


72  David  and  Jonathan 

more  eager  in  those  first  few  days  to  get  away  than 
I  was,  perhaps  because  he  had  less  hope,  or  partly 
on  account  of  his  knowledge  of  what  life  would 
really  mean  in  such  a  place.  I  can  scent  danger 
right  enough,  but  that  place  in  those  first  few  days 
was  a  Garden  of  Eden  to  me  after  the  experiences 
we  had  been  through. 

"Anyhow,  we  fixed  our  flagstaff  firmly  in  the 
sand,  with  that  flutter  of  white  at  the  head  of  it — 
some  garment  we  had  taken  from  one  of  the  bodies 
that  had  been  washed  ashore.  Three  cheers  we 
gave,  when  it  was  up.  Mine,  I  must  confess,  were 
in  the  nature  of  a  schoolboy's;  Jonathan's  more 
serious,  but  breaking  at  the  end  into  a  laugh  at  my 
enthusiasm  for  a  bit  of  work  done.  It  had  indeed 
been  no  easy  job,  lugging  that  forty  feet  of  bam- 
boo pole  through  the  maze  of  those  forest  trees  and 
giant  grasses. 

' '  When  once  the  cheers  were  given,  nothing  would 
satisfy  me,  but  I  must  swarm  up  it,  as  far  as  its 
thickness  would  allow,  just  to  see  what  sort  of  an 
advantage  it  gave  to  that  bit  of  white  flapping  up 
there.  Up  I  went,  halfways,  Jonathan  standing 
there  below  on  the  sandy  beach,  laughing  at  my 
efforts.  I  was  laughing  too,  it  was  so  confoundedly 
greasy,  and  only  my  bare  feet  could  grio  it.  Then, 


The  "Malaga's"  Boat  73 

as  I  looked  out  to  sea,  all  the  laughter  went  out  of 
me,  as  though  a  sudden  gust  of  wind  had  blown  it 
off  my  lips.  In  a  second  I  had  slithered  down  to 
the  ground  and  was  gasping  to  Jonathan  what  I 
had  seen. 

"  'There's  a  boat,'  I  said,  'there's  a  boat — a 
ship's  boat — drifting  in  shore.  I — I  think  I  saw 
people  in  it.  I'll  swear  I  did.' 

"And  there  sure  enough,  from  the  ground,  but 
almost  concealed  below  the  higher  line  of  breakers, 
was  a  boat,  lifting  one  instant  into  sight  in  a  sag 
of  the  line  of  surf,  then  disappearing  completely 
from  view. 

"  For  five  minutes  Jonathan  never  said  a  word, 
until  he  had  made  sure  of  the  sight  of  it  at  least 
half  a  dozen  times,  then  he  turned  and  looked  at  me. 

"  'It's  one  of  the  Malaga's  boats,'  said  he. 
'They've  kept  off  shore  all  these  days,  hoping,  I 
suppose,  to  stay  in  track  of  steamers.  There  can't 
be  a  soul  alive  in  it,  or  at  any  rate  with  any 
strength  left,  because  the  drift  has  caught  them. 
They're  washing  in  this  way  sure  enough.  If  we 
could  save  that  boat ! ' 

' '  He  said  no  more,  but  at  once  began  stripping  off 
all  his  clothes.  It  was  the  boat,  only  the  boat,  he 
was  thinking  of. 


74  David  and  Jonathan 

'"In  the  name  of  God —  ? '  I  began. 

"'I'm  going  to  have  a  shot,  and  swim  for  it,' 
he  said. 

"  Well — hang  it !  What  could  I  do  but  have  my 
shot  as  well  ? ' ' 


CHAPTER   IX 

BURDEN   OF   THE   SEA 

TT  was  not  to  be  expected  that  David  should 
succeed,  or  even  Jonathan  either,  for  that 
matter.  At  least,  however,  he  accomplished  more 
than  D  avid '  s  strength  allowed  for  him .  He  got  out 
far  enough  to  save  the  boat  before  it  was  capsized 
between  the  furrows  of  that  field  of  foam.  With 
almost  superhuman  effort  he  righted  her  as  she 
came  reeling  in  towards  shore,  all  broadside  on 
and  half  awash  in  the  fret  of  the  tumbling  water. 
With  the  final  help  of  David,  her  keel  was  grounded 
in  the  slush  of  the  sand.  They  could  not  haul  her 
high  and  dry.  Had  she  been  empty,  she  was  one 
of  the  heaviest  of  the  Malaga's  boats.  But  there, 
flung  about  in  the  bottom,  between  the  thwarts,  all 
in  the  helpless  attitudes  of  death,  were  six  bodies — 
four  women  and  two  men  of  the  Malaga's  crew. 

"We  stood,  both  of  us,  staring  at  them,"  writes 
David,  now  in  a  serious  enough  vein,  "and  there, 

75 


76  David  and  Jonathan 

peeping  out  from  amongst  the  disordered  heap  of 
clothing,  I  saw  the  folds  of  a  bottle-green  petti- 
coat, sodden,  crushed,  stained  with  sea- water, 
but  sufficiently  recognizable  to  jolt  a  memory, 
jerking  into  my  mind. 

"  One  by  one,  we  lifted  them  out  of  the  boat  and 
laid  them  on  that  same  warm  beach  of  sand  I  had 
been  so  thankful  for  only  a  few  days  before.  There 
was  not  much  satisfaction  those  poor  devils  could 
get  out  of  the  warmth  of  it  then. 

"  It  struck  me  again  during  this  incident,  the 
truth  of  Jonathan's  remarks  about  the  elemental 
instincts.  Callous  as  it  may  seem,  we  were  far 
more  concerned  with  what  they  had  brought  with 
them  in  the  boat  which  would  be  of  use  to  us,  even 
down  to  the  contents  of  their  pockets,  than  at  the 
sight  of  those  six  lifeless  bodies.  That  they  had 
struggled  for  so  many  days  against  adversity,  and 
failed;  moreover,  what  all  the  horrible  circum- 
stances of  that  failure  must  have  been — for  here 
there  were  only  six,  whereas  when  she  had  left  the 
Malaga's  side,  the  boat  had  been  full — seemed  in 
no  way  so  full  of  tragedy  as  the  fact  that  there 
was  only  one  half-full  box  of  biscuits  left  of 
all  their  stores.  Both  men  had  pipes  and  some 
quantity  of  tobacco  left.  They  could  hardly  have 


Burden  of  the  Sea  77 

smoked  at  all  for  those  ten  days  or  so.  One  can 
scarcely  wonder  at  that.  Every  one  of  them  had 
died  from  some  form  of  exhaustion  and  sickness 
brought  on  by  thirst.  All  the  water-bottles  were 
dry  as  bones.  Many,  no  doubt,  had  gone  mad, 
as  they  do  under  the  strain  of  acute  thirst,  and 
thrown  themselves  overboard.  So,  at  least,  we 
accounted  for  these  six  bodies,  remaining  out  of  the 
boat-load  which  had  set  forth  from  the  side  of  the 
burning  Malaga. 

"I  don't  know  what  Jonathan  felt  as  we  went 
through  the  pockets  of  the  clothes  on  those  six 
bodies  lying  there  on  the  sand  in  silent  witness  to 
the  merciless  laws  of  Life  when  it  is  reduced  to  its 
elemental  conditions.  I  know  I  felt  like  a  scav- 
enger, a  ghoul,  stealing  from  the  dead. 

"  Probably  I  did  not  realize  those  sensations 
acutely  enough  to  record  them  until  I  came  to 
the  woman  whom  I  had  carried  up  myself  in  my 
arms  from  the  saloon.  As  I  bent  over  her,  the 
sense  of  sacrilege  to  the  dead  came  suddenly 
over  me  when  I  looked  into  her  face.  The  next 
second,  with  the  last  half  of  the  breath  I  was 
that  moment  breathing,  I  had  shouted  Jonathan's 
name. 

"  He  looked  up  from  where  he  was  kneeling, 


78  David  and  Jonathan 

caught  in  a  sudden  tension  of  interest  by  the  note 
in  my  voice. 

'"She's  breathing!'  I  shouted.  'She's — she's 
alive,  man!  What  in  the  name  of  God  can  we 
do?'" 

Though  David  put  the  question,  it  becomes  ob- 
vious from  his  narrative  as  he  continues  that  he 
was  the  only  one  of  those  two  who  knew  what  was 
best  to  be  done.  It  was  patently  enough  a  case 
of  exhaustion,  of  fever,  brought  about  by  the  pro- 
longed need  of  moisture  in  the  system. 

"I  always  carried  my  fountain-pen  and  a  filler, " 
he  says,  "and  had  laughed  over  the  fact  with 
Jonathan  only  two  days  before,  because  devil  a 
drop  of  ink  could  I  ever  hope  to  make  or  find  in 
that  corner  of  the  world.  Now  that  filler  was  in- 
valuable. Charged  with  brandy  from  Jonathan's 
flask,  which  we  had  brought  with  us,  I  got  some  of 
the  liquid  well  down  her  throat,  past  the  terribly 
parched  tongue  she  had.  Slightly  she  shivered  as 
the  warmth  of  it  found  its  way  into  her  system. 
But  it  was  a  long  time  before  she  returned  to 
actual  consciousness. 

"  In  a  tentative  and  clumsy  sort  of  way,  old  Jon- 


Burden  of  the  Sea  79 

athan  helped  me  while  I  massaged  her  hands,  arms, 
and  feet,  inducing  the  circulation  back  into  her 
veins,  and  restoring  that  warmth  of  life  which 
almost  had  gone  out  of  her. 

' '  We  used  nearly  all  the  brandy.  That  could  not 
be  helped.  There  was  little  likelihood,  except  in 
the  event  of  accident,  that  we  should  want  it 
again.  Water  there  was  in  plenty  at  the  creek, 
where  we  had  found  the  source  of  that  leakage 
through  the  fissure  in  the  rocks. 

"  It  must  have  been  half  an  hour  or  more  before 
she  opened  her  eyes;  another  hour  at  least  before 
she  could  utter  a  word,  and  that,  in  a  rasped,  hoarse 
tone  of  voice,  as  though  the  very  chords  in  her 
throat  were  drawn  and  withered  with  the  drought 
in  her  body. 

"  She  asked  where  she  was.  I  did  my  best  to 
explain,  realizing  how  foolish  any  explanations 
must  really  be  to  her  in  that  state  of  mind.  After 
a  bit  I  fed  her  with  pieces  of  biscuit,  soaked  in 
brandy  and  water.  Even  then  it  was  with  the 
greatest  pain  and  effort  she  could  swallow  it. 
Nevertheless,  they  gave  her  strength.  There  was 
a  moment  when  she  fastened  her  feverish  eyes  on 
me  in  gratitude.  But  my  heavens !  What  a  change 
just  those  few  days  had  made  in  her.  No  one 


8o  David  and  Jonathan 

would  have  believed  it  possible,  seeing  her  then, 
for  there  ever  to  have  been  the  certain  type  of 
beauty  which  I  had  seen  those  few  moments  as  I 
carried  her  up  the  stairs  from  the  saloon,  white 
and  unconscious  as  she  was,  in  my  arms. 

' '  In  about  two  hours'  time  she  had  regained  suffi- 
cient strength  to  bear  being  lifted  into  the  boat. 
Then,  with  all  our  new-found  possessions,  amongst 
which  the  boat,  of  course,  was  the  most  invaluable 
of  all,  we  set  out,  up  that  gully  from  the  sea,  back 
by  our  path  through  the  swamp  and  the  forest  to 
the  creek. 

"  With  such  garments  as  we  had  collected  from 
the  other  bodies,  we  made  a  bed  for  her  in  the 
bottom  of  the  boat.  That  bed  served  its  purpose. 
The  whole  way  back  she  slept,  a  normal  sleep  which 
spoke  volumes  for  her  recuperative  powers,  while 
all  the  time  a  more  healthy  tone  of  colour  crept 
back  into  the  ghostly  pallor  of  her  cheeks. 

"We  talked  about  her  all  the  time,  where  we 
should  put  her  for  the  night ;  how  we  must  set  to 
work  at  once  to  increase  our  accommodation ;  how 
we  could  provide  the  best  for  her  comfort ;  wonder- 
ing, too,  in  a  vague  way,  what  sort  of  a  companion 
she  would  prove  to  be. 

"  '  She'll  just  have  to  do  what  she's  told,'  said 


Burden  of  the  Sea  81 

Jonathan,  who  was  not  one  in  those  conditions  of 
life  to  play  with  the  doing  of  anything.  Under 
his  command,  I  had  never  done  such  hard  manual 
work  in  the  whole  of  my  life,  neither,  for  that 
matter,  had  I  ever  enjoyed  anything  so  well. 

"  After  about  four  hours,  just  as  it  was  drawing 
to  dusk,  we  reached  home.  I  seem  to  call  it  home 
naturally  enough ;  yet  I  suppose  to  any  one  reading 
these  pages,  it  will  appear  somewhat  incongruous 
that  a  shakedown  of  a  hut  with  a  flimsy  roof  of 
banana  leaves  could  deserve  such  a  name.  Yet 
that  is  what  it  meant  for  many  a  day  to  all  of  us. 

"  She  slept  that  night  in  the  hut  on  the  softest 
bed  I  could  make  for  her,  while  we  lay  down  by  the 
bonfire  outside.  So  long  as  that  was  burning, 
and  our  palisade  was  firm,  there  was  no  fear  of 
being  disturbed.  I  gave  her  some  more  food, 
soaked  in  brandy  and  water  as  before,  about  an 
hour  previous  to  her  going  to  sleep  for  the  night. 
Then  Jonathan  and  I  turned  in.  We  rolled  our- 
selves in  the  ship's  blankets  we  had  found  and 
lay,  staring  into  our  bonfire,  talking  for  another 
good  two  hours  about  the  events  of  that  day, 
before  we  settled  ourselves  to  sleep." 


CHAPTER  X 

RESPONSIBILITIES 

"\  X  7HEN  we  awoke  the  next  morning,"  Da- 
vid's narrative  continues,  "it  was  to  a 
sense  of  responsibility,  not  unpleasantly  distract- 
ing, which  had  been  added  to  the  mere  routine  of 
living  there  in  that  creek,  until  such  time  as  a 
ship,  coming  near  enough  to  the  coast,  should  see 
our  signal  of  distress  and  send  a  boat  to  rescue  us. 

"According  to  Jonathan,  as  I  have  already 
shown,  this  was  a  possibility  as  remote  as  it  was 
bare.  Because  of  those  very  swamps,  that  coast 
was  deserted  by  natives  from  inland  and  disre- 
garded by  ships  at  sea.  As  a  habitation,  obviously 
it  was  impossible.  As  a  speculation  for  traders — 
unless,  as  Jonathan  was  inclined  to  think,  there 
might  be  traces  of  gold — it  was  worthless. 

"  But  our  chances  of  escape  had  increased  with 
the  possession  of  the  Malaga's  boat.  So  at  least 

it  seemed  to  me,  until  Jonathan  informed  me  that 

82 


Responsibilities  83 

launching  her  in  the  teeth  of  those  lines  of  waves 
from  the  beach,  was  a  job  that  might  be  under- 
taken by  a  number  of  men  capable  of  keeping  her 
head  to  the  surf,  but  as  a  workable  proposition  for 
two  ordinary  men  might  be  straightway  put  out 
of  the  question." 

David  apparently  was  less  depressed  than  Jon- 
athan by  this  prospect.  The  whole  aspect  of  the 
life  was  new  to  him.  It  was  less  a  prison,  and 
more  of  an  adventurous  experiment  with  Fate. 
He  felt  he  was  learning  new  things  about  himself, 
as  it  might  be  with  one  looking  in  a  mirror  for  the 
first  time,  and  knowing  himself  for  what  he  was. 
The  only  counter-attractions  which  might  have 
induced  in  him  a  fretting  spirit  of  discontent, 
were  those  circumstances  of  life  which  he  had  been 
accustomed  to  in  London — the  daily  round  of  an 
idle  man  with  more  than  sufficient  for  his  needs, 
and  ease  eating  out  with  rust  all  the  ambitions  he 
had  ever  had. 

He  says  in  various  places  in  that  script  of  his,  that 
he  had  grown  sick  of  his  existence  in  the  Albany. 
This,  indeed,  had  been  his  reason  for  undertaking  a 
big  game  shoot  in  Central  Africa.  Yet  even  that, 
as  Jonathan  had  remarked,  had  been  in  the  nature 


84  David  and  Jonathan 

of  an  organized  Cook's  tour,  everything  cut  and 
dried  with  business-like  precision  no  sooner  had 
he  put  his  money  down  on  the  counter. 

But  such  an  adventure  as  was  this,  with  all  its 
uncertain  issues  at  stake  and  now  the  added  inter- 
est of  a  woman  dependent  upon  them,  was  one 
which  not  even  the  most  go-ahead  and  enterpris- 
ing firm  of  travelling  agents  could  ever  have  pro- 
vided him  with. 

He  woke,  anyhow,  that  morning  evidently  in  the 
top  of  his  spirits.  It  was  not  this  way  with  Jonathan. 
That  creek  indeed  was  a  prison  to  him,  having  none 
of  the  alluring  element  of  change  with  all  the  trav- 
elling he  had  done  in  unfrequented  corners  of  the 
world.  What  is  more,  it  was  far  greater  a  hindrance 
to  his  work  than  any  wife  could  ever  have  been. 

He  had  escaped  from  matrimony  so  far,  lift- 
ing always  in  spirits  as  the  whistle  blew  for  all 
ashore,  and  the  Blue  Peter  was  hauled  down  from 
the  masthead.  So  far  as  he  could  see,  there  was 
no  escape  from  this,  except  by  the  fluke  of  chance, 
and  now  another  hindrance  had  been  added  to 
the  risks  attached  to  their  making  a  bid  for  free- 
dom. His  first  glance  that  morning  had  been  cast 
towards  the  hut  where  their  new  companion  was 
lying,  when,  turning  to  David,  he  said: 


Responsibilities  85 

"You'd  better  look  after  her.  You're  a  better 
hand  at  that  sort  of  tricksy  business  than  I  am. 
When  she's  able  to  move  about,  she'll  want  button- 
ing up  the  back,  or  some  sort  of  nonsense  like  that, 
and  that's  no  job  of  mine." 

He  had  said  this  in  some  sort  of  cynical  humour, 
and  then,  in  a  more  serious  tone  of  voice,  he  added, 
"We  can't  be  hampered  by  her,  you  know.  If  we 
have  to  take  a  risk  to  get  out  of  this,  she'll  have  to 
take  it  with  us,  or  stay  behind." 

"It  was  again,"  writes  David,  "another  sudden 
insight  into  the  hidden  mysteries  of  elemental 
impulse.  The  moment  he  had  said  it,  I  felt  for  an 
instant  amazed  at  his  callousness;  but  the  next, 
as  his  words  passed  on  their  vibrations  towards 
other  and  unawakened  cells  in  my  brain,  I  knew 
he  was  quite  right. " 

Nevertheless,  it  had  come  into  Jonathan's 
mind  first,  and  that  is  a  point  of  interest  which 
David  misses  in  his  observation  of  the  incident. 
They  were,  these  two,  as  I  have  said  before,  pro- 
nounced types,  the  old  civilization  and  the  new; 
the  one  with  all  the  force  of  physical  nature  silent 
but  insistent  in  him,  the  other  with  all  the  force  of 


86  David  and  Jonathan 

nature's  increasing  mentality  leaping  towards  the 
unknown.  I  have  gone  back  in  my  script  and  copied 
these  words  exactly  as  I  had  written  them  before. 

It  is,  therefore,  consistent  with  that  description 
of  them,  that  Jonathan  should  first  have  formed, 
in  his  sense  of  the  situation,  this  apparently  callous 
point  of  view.  If  regarded  closely,  however,  as 
David  admits  he  regarded  it  on  second  thoughts 
himself,  the  callousness  goes  clean  out  of  it.  It 
was  reasonable,  the  logical  attitude  as  seen  from 
the  rights  of  each  man  to  his  existence  in  a  world 
where  the  survival  of  the  fittest  is  at  present  ac- 
cepted as  the  predominating  law.  This  law  it  is 
which  our  enemies  are  endeavouring  to  stamp  inef- 
faceably  and  for  ever  upon  that  parchment  whereon 
are  written  the  higher  hopes  and  nobler  ideals 
of  the  civilized  world. 

It  was  this  decision  in  any  case  which  they 
naturally  adopted  that  first  morning  when  they 
awoke  to  the  realization  of  what  this  addition  to 
their  little  community  must  mean. 

"It  all  depends,"  replied  David  when  he  had 
thought  about  it  for  a  moment — "it  all  depends 
upon  what  sort  of  a  woman  she  is."  And  staring 
straight  into  the  ashes  of  their  burnt-out  bonfire, 
he  repeated  it  again,  "It  all  depends  upon  that." 


CHAPTER  XI 

CONVALESCENCE 

TN  seven  or  eight  days,  Joan — David  calls  her 
by  no  other  name — was  well  enough  to  leave 
the  hut  for  the  first  time,  and  on  his  arm  to  walk 
out  into  the  sunshine.  For  all  that  time  he,  alone, 
had  nursed  and  tended  to  her,  and,  though  he  says 
no  word  of  it,  I  can  imagine  with  what  considera- 
tion and  thoughtfulness  he  must  have  done  it. 
There  was  enough  of  the  feminine  quality  in  his 
temperament,  detracting  nothing  from  his  mas- 
culinity, to  enable  him  to  sense  acutely  the  things 
that  mean  much  to  women,  without  pretending  to 
understand  the  intrinsic  quality  of  the  things  them- 
selves. "To  make  such  pretence  as  this,"  he  says 
in  some  other  part  of  his  story,  "is  to  destroy  all 
the  value  of  doing  the  right  thing." 

To  me  that  sounds  truer  than  a  truism  and 
gives  me  much  of  the  reason  for  my  assumption 
that  during  the  period,  when  she  was  dependent 

8? 


88  David  and  Jonathan 

upon  him  for  so  many  things,  he  must  have  been 
a  constant  surprise  to  her  in  the  way  he  understood, 
and,  in  the  way  of  men,  which  must  always  be 
clumsy  in  a  sick-room,  attended  to  her  wants. 

"I  was  a  constant  source  of  amusement  to  her," 
he  says,  in  the  only  description  he  gives  of  her 
recovery,  "in  the  way  I  did  things  about  the  hut. 
It  was  when  once  she  began  to  laugh — and  that 
was  pretty  soon — that  she  began  to  get  better." 

I  am  quite  prepared  to  believe  that  she  found 
him  intensely  amusing.  I  can  assume  also  that  she 
had  no  little  wonder  beside.  And  all  that  she  knew 
of  Jonathan  for  those  first  few  days  was  a  sound  of 
hammering,  continuing  all  day  long,  redoubled  in 
energy  and  noise  when  David  was  not  with  her. 
This  was  the  construction  of  the  new  hut  for  the 
accommodation  made  necessary  by  her  arrival. 

Gradually  David  told  her  all  their  schemes,  the 
plans  they  were  making  for  their  comfort  and 
ultimate  escape,  until,  with  the  returning  of  her 
strength,  she  became  as  eager  as  a  child  to  be  up 
and  helping  them  in  the  work,  the  benefits  of 
which  she  was  herself  to  share. 

I  have  inferred  that  he  pays  but  little  attention 
to  description  of  her  illness  and  recovery,  but  I 
cannot  omit  a  passage  in  his  pages  at  this  point  in 


Convalescence  89 

which  he  describes  his  first  impression  of  her  as  she 
began  to  regain  strength  and  give  evidence  of  her 
more  normal  personality. 

' ' This  is  how  I  saw  her  then, ' '  he  says.  ' '  At  that 
time,  when  she  had  been  about  five  days  at  the 
creek,  and  was  beginning  to  take  a  more  lively 
interest  in  our  conversations.  She  had  a  fine  sense 
of  pride,  shown  in  many  things  besides  her  spirit 
of  independence  while  she  was  an  invalid.  There 
was,  as  well,  a  strong  appreciation  for  the  beauti- 
ful in  her  nature.  This  I  gathered  simply  enough 
from  her  taste  in  literature,  painting,  and  the  fine 
arts  generally.  We  disagreed  on  many  things, 
but  her  outlook  in  these  cases  was  due  to  tempera- 
ment, and  in  no  case  to  want  of  intelligence. 

' '  She  liked  the  best  things  in  life.  Witness  her 
bottle-green  petticoat.  Yet  at  the  same  time 
there  appeared  an  absolute  contradiction  to  this 
m  her  almost  childish  delight,  when  once  she  was 
getting  well,  in  the  primitive  conditions  with 
which  she  found  she  was  surrounded.  I  had  ex- 
pected her  to  chafe  against  discomforts  at  every 
turn — and  Lord  knows  there  were  plenty  of  them. 
She  simply  laughed,  and  with  a  broad  sense  of 
humour  you  find  in  few  women  who  regard  their 


90  David  and  Jonathan 

first  appearance  in  the  morning  as  a  serious  event. 
This  certainly  she  did,  as  she  gave  full  evidence  of 
in  her  concern  at  meeting  Jonathan  for  the  first 
time. 

"  She  was  full  of  curiosity  about  him,  that  man 
who  was  only  visualized  so  far  to  her  by  a  constant 
sound  of  hammering.  Again  and  again  she  asked 
me  why  he  did  not  come  to  see  her. 

"  'We  shall  have  to  meet  sooner  or  later,'  she 
said  once,  with  a  laugh. 

' '  And  I  had  to  invent  all  sorts  of  excuses,  the  most 
convincing  of  which  was  the  true  one,  that  he  was 
not  first  and  foremost  a  ladies'  man,  and  certainly 
was  not  at  his  best  as  a  conversationalist  in  their 
bedrooms. 

"  '  I  think  I  shall  like  him,'  was  her  reply  to  that, 
and  as  far  as  I  could  see  from  their  first  meeting, 
she  did.  We  had  got  on  well  with  the  new  hut, 
which  was  an  elaborate  affair,  combining  a  sleep- 
ing-room for  us  and  a  general  room  to  be  used  by 
all  of  us  for  meals.  For  her  own  sleeping  accommo- 
dation, it  was  intended  she  should  keep  to  the  hut 
we  had  first  built,  which  was  to  be  improved  upon 
at  the  earliest  opportunity.  When  she  asked, 
with  a  twinkle  in  her  eye,  if  we  had  not  arranged 
for  her  to  have  some  little  private  sitting-room  to 


Convalescence  91 

herself,  I  saw  for  a  moment  a  look  in  Jonathan's 
face  as  though  he  felt  we  were  badly  in  for  it. 
Yet  somehow,  instead  of  thinking  he  was  a  fool 
for  that  look,  so  wanting  in  a  sense  of  humour,  I 
realized  he  was  the  best  chap  in  the  world.  He 
smiled,  but  a  moment  late,  when  he  realized  she 
was  only  jesting." 

It  becomes  necessary  here  for  me  to  sketch,  as 
briefly  as  possible,  the  type  of  woman  she  was,  not, 
that  is  to  say,  as  regards  character — David  has  done 
that  for  me — but  the  class  to  which  she  belonged 
and  the  circumstances  of  life  in  which  she  had 
been  brought  up.  During  those  days  when  she 
was  gradually  recovering  her  strength,  she  told 
David  without  any  reserve  all  there  was  to  be  told 
about  herself. 

Her  father  was  prominently  connected  with  dia- 
mond mines  near  Kimberley;  a  big  and  evidently 
a  wealthy  man  in  his  way.  Believing  in  an 
English  education,  he  had  sent  his  daughter  to 
England  to  school  at  the  age  of  ten,  and  there,  in 
charge  of  friends  whose  leniency  had  given  her 
every  freedom,  she  had  been  brought  up.  Every 
year  her  father  had  come  home  for  a  month  or  so 
to  see  her.  Her  mother  was  dead.  From  all  these 


92  David  and  Jonathan 

circumstances,  and  receiving  a  generous  allowance 
from  her  father,  she  had  grown  up  with  an  unusual 
sense  of  freedom  in  a  girl,  and  an  uncommon  spirit 
of  independence  as  compared  with  many  women 
one  met  before  the  War. 

Asked  by  David,  on  one  of  those  occasions  when 
she  was  speaking  of  her  upbringing,  why  she  had 
never  married,  she  replied: 

"But  why ?     Why  ask  that ? ' ' 

"Well,  I  take  it,"  said  he  boldly,  "you're  half- 
way between  twenty  and  thirty.  Most  girls  come 
to  matrimony  by  then  with  less  qualifications  for 
it  than  you." 

By  the  use  of  that  phrase,  she  knew  apparently 
he  was  avoiding  a  compliment,  and  doubtless  liked 
him  the  better  for  it.  She  did  not,  anyhow,  press 
to  know  what  sort  of  qualifications  he  implied.  A 
sensible  woman  realizes  the  full  extent  of  her  attrac- 
tions and  prefers  deeds  for  compliments  rather  than 
words.  She  did  not,  however,  answer  his  question, 
but  put  another  straight  to  him. 

"Are  you  married?"  she  inquired. 

"Neither  of  us  is,"  said  he. 

"Well,  I  take  it  you're  between  thirty  and  forty, 
and  with  necessary  qualifications — why  haven't 
you?" 


Convalescence  93 

For  himself,  David  replied  that  there  was  a  little 
matter  of  finding  the  one  woman. 

"Do  you  imply  from  that,"  she  asked  him, 
"that  there's  a  superfluity  of  the  right  men  ?" 

This  was  an  example  of  the  conversations  they 
had  in  the  hut  while  he  was  attending  to  her,  and 
invariably  by  some  turn  of  her  wit,  or  twist  of  his 
sense  of  humour,  they  all  ended  in  laughter. 
Hearing  it,  between  the  blows  of  his  improvised 
hammer  or  the  swing  of  his  axe,  Jonathan  often 
chafed  at  the  sound,  when  the  blows  with  which  he 
followed  it  were  the  heavier,  though  not  necessarily 
the  more  effective. 

These  sketches,  I  feel  inclined  to  think,  suffi- 
ciently describe  that  period  of  time  while  she  was 
recovering  from  the  exhaustion  of  her  adventure  in 
the  Malaga's  boat  and  before  she  took  her  normal 
and  proper  place  in  that  strange  menage  a  trots 
from  which  so  much  is  to  be  learnt  of  those  ele- 
mental truths  civilization  tends  to  hide  from  us  at 
every  turn. 


CHAPTER  XII 

PRELIMINARIES 

had  found  her,  it  will  be  remembered, 
lying  by  the  piano  in  the  saloon,  where  evi- 
dently she  had  been  playing  to  amuse  herself. 
There  could  have  been  no  audience,  or  she  would 
not  have  been  missed.  It  had  been  after  dinner. 
She  was  not  in  evening  dress,  but,  as  David  had 
observed,  her  costume  had  been  carefully  con- 
sidered for  that  occasion  of  her  first  appearance. 

"The  more  I  saw  of  her  in  those  first  few  days  at 
the  creek,"  he  writes  somewhere,  "the  more  I 
marvelled  at  a  woman  of  her  independence  of 
character  toppling  down  in  a  faint  at  the  first 
alarm  of  fire.  That,  however,  she  explained  away 
by  telling  me  that  for  the  first  days  of  the  voyage 
she  had  been  pretty  bad  and  was  still  feeling  a  bit 
shaky.  The  fact  that  she  survived  the  others  in  the 
Malaga's  boat  proves  she  was  constitutionally 
pretty  strong." 

94 


Preliminaries  95 

It  was,  anyhow,  in  that  costume  in  which  he  had 
found  her  that  she  made  her  first  appearance  out- 
side the  hut.  She  had  called  out  to  David  when 
she  was  ready,  and,  opening  the  door,  he  found  her, 
pale  no  doubt  as  when  first  he  had  seen  her,  but 
reminding  him,  almost  with  a  shock  it  would 
appear,  of  those  momentary  sensations  he  had 
experienced  as  he  carried  her  up  in  his  arms  on 
deck.  She  had  done  her  hair  carefully,  and  from 
all  accounts  it  was  hair  worth  doing.  Some 
powder  she  must  have  had  in  one  of  those  recep- 
tacles women  carry  more  zealously  than  rosary 
beads — but  apparently  no  colour  for  her  lips  or 
cheeks.  He  assumes  this  by  the  fact  that  she  had 
used  none,  and  I  have  no  doubt  he  is  right. 

Jonathan's  first  impression  of  her  as  he  saw  her 
crossing  the  creek  on  David's  arm  must  have  been 
based  entirely  upon  his  preconceived  attitude  of 
mind.  She  was  a  woman,  therefore  she  was  a 
hindrance  to  their  hazardous  plans  of  escape. 

After  two  days  in  the  sea,  and  having  had  no 
Thames-punting  job  to  get  through  the  forest, 
they  were  themselves  in  no  way  fashionable  in  their 
general  appearance.  Therefore,  to  see  this  woman, 
come  out  of  Bond  Street,  as  indeed — with  some 
adventures  not  exactly  calculated  to  improve  her 


96  David  and  Jonathan 

appearance — she  had,  was  not  an  event  likely  to 
inspire  him  with  confidence.  He  talked  to  her  for 
a  moment  or  so;  inquired  after  her  health  in  a 
formal  sort  of  way;  hoped  they  would  be  able  to 
make  her  comfortable,  and  then  went  on  with  his 
work. 

"I  believe,"  says  David,  "that  she  assimilated 
every  thought  he  had  had  in  his  mind.  I  believe 
that  with  this  knowledge  in  her  possession  from 
actual  observation,  she  calculated  accurately  his 
reasons  for  not  coming  to  see  her  once  while  she 
was  in  the  hut.  I  believe  she  knew  everything  in 
both  our  minds  that  first  morning  when  she  came 
out  from  the  seclusion  of  her  room  and  took  in  the 
situation  from  beginning  to  end. 

"  Whether  my  beliefs  are  right  or  not — and  she 
said  nothing  to  me  about  it — she  appeared  the 
next  morning  in  men's  garments,  of  which,  as  may 
be  supposed,  we  had  a  fair  supply  from  the  bodies 
that  had  been  washed  up. 

"I  remember  I  stood  looking  at  her  in  amaze- 
ment. Jonathan  too. 

"  '  In  the  name  of  heaven — ! '  I  began. 

"  '  I  want  to  help,'  she  replied.  'Petticoats  are 
no  good  for  this  job.  I'm  not  strong  enough  to  do 


Preliminaries  97 

anything  today — but  I  thought  I'd  begin  to  get 
accustomed  to  my  uniform.' 

' '  '  But  why  that  rig-out  ? '  I  asked.  '  What's  the 
matter  with  your  sex  ? ' 

"  To  which  she  replied,  'I  don't  mind  my  sex 
alive,  but  if  it's  got  to  be  dead  people's  clothes, 
I'd  prefer  they  were  men's.'  ' 

David  comments  upon  this  point  of  view  and 
seems  to  see  more  significance  in  it  than  is  appa- 
rent to  me.  He  infers  from  it  a  tendency  in  women 
to  escape  whenever  possible  from  their  own  sex; 
that  women  on  the  whole  do  not  prefer  to  be 
women,  whereas  men  are  mostly  satisfied  as 
they  are.  What  there  may  be  in  this,  I  do  not 
pretend  to  follow.  To  me,  it  merely  shows  a 
sensitiveness  which  does  nothing  more  than  con- 
tribute to  the  general  and  definite  outline  of  her 
character. 

Whatever  it  was,  and  whether  the  intention  was 
such  as  David  supposes,  the  effect  upon  Jonathan 
was  well  within  those  calculations  of  hers  which  he 
indicated. 

For  the  first  time  in  their  short  acquaintance, 
Jonathan  laughed  without  restraint,  and  joined  in 
the  jokes  she  made  about  herself.  But  after  a  few 


98  David  and  Jonathan 

moments,  when  he  found  their  talk  was  interfering 
with  the  work  he  had  in  hand,  he  took  little  more 
notice  of  her,  and  went  on  with  his  job. 

For  a  little  while  she  sat  in  silence  and  watched 
them  both. 

"And  then —  "according  to  David's  description, 
for  apparently  he  never  lost  consciousness  of  her 
presence,  "she  walked  slowly  away,  finding  a 
place — a  flat  projection  of  rock — on  the  side  of  the 
slope  leading  up  into  the  forest  where  every  day 
one  of  us  went  to  fetch  the  fresh  water,  and  there 
she  lay  in  the  sun.  Within  five  minutes,  I  believe 
she  was  asleep.  When  I  went  to  call  her  for  her 
midday  meal  of  yams,  tomatoes,  and  bananas, 
she  wakened  with  a  start  and  said : 

"  'How  long  do  you  think  it's  likely  that  I'm 
going  to  enjoy  life  as  much  as  I'm  doing  now  ? ' 

"  I  felt  glad,  somehow,  she  had  not  said  that  to 
Jonathan." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

FEMININITY 

OHE  appears  to  have  proved  an  excellent  worker 
^  when — as  David  puts  it — "her  mood  did  not 
incline  her  to  be  too  feminine." 

I  take  this  to  mean  that  there  were  times  when 
she  expected  more  attention  and  consideration  to 
be  shown  her  than  was  really  compatible  with  the 
circumstances  of  their  extraordinary  situation. 
This  meaning  is  indeed  made  clear  in  an  account 
which  David  gives  later,  marking  a  stage  in  the 
development  of  that  strange  predicament  in  which 
they  found  themselves. 

He  describes  at  no  little  length  the  work  she  did 
for  them  at  the  creek,  never  once  complaining  of 
the  rough  life  it  undoubtedly  must  have  been.  He 
gives  minute  details  of  the  construction  of  the 
hut,  as  they  finished  it  in  about  three  weeks'  time, 
the  conditions  under  which  they  got  their  food, 
the  sort  of  food  it  was,  and  the  further  precautions 

99 


ioo  David  and  Jonathan 

they  took  of  signalling  from  the  summit  of  the 
cliff  for  passing  ships  at  sea. 

All  this,  though  I  read  every  word  of  it  carefully 
and,  must  admit,  with  interest,  I  still  consider  to 
be  superfluous  to  the  main  issue  of  the  story. 
That  main  issue  was  the  expression  of  the  immuta- 
ble laws  in  these  three  and  the  gradual  reduction 
of  their  attitudes  of  mind  to  the  simplest  and  most 
vital  questions  of  existence. 

I  shall  therefore  leave  out  all  of  what  I  call  the 
Swiss  Family  Robinson  part  of  David's  narrative, 
except  where  it  inextricably  concerns  that  main 
issue,  and  so  sub-edit  him  and  keep  him  to  the 
important  point  of  his  story. 

Here,  then,  is  the  account  he  gives,  by  which  I 
read  clear  enough  the  meaning  of  his  use  of  that 
phrase — inclination  to  femininity. 

"  She  had  told  us  on  one  occasion,  that  the  day 
following  was  her  birthday. 

' '  '  How  old  do  you  think  I  shall  be  ? '  she  asked 
Jonathan  with  a  directness  that  reduced  him  to 
confusion.  We  could  see  him  go  red  under  the  tan 
of  his  skin,  and  I  must  say  I  felt  sorry  for  him. 
She  never  felt  a  twinge,  or  if  she  did,  concealed  it 
with  laughter  that  rang  with  real  amusement. 


Femininity  101 

"  'You  can  say  just  what  you  think/  she  said; 
'there  are  no  other  women  present.' 

"  Jonathan  hazarded  twenty- three,  to  be  on  the 
safe  side,  whereupon  she  turned  to  me,  ignoring 
him  in  the  conversation,  because  she  knew  he  had 
funked  it. 

"  In  this  manner,  as  I  look  back  on  it  from  a  dis- 
tance of  time,  the  essential  nature  of  her  began  to 
rouse  the  essential  nature  in  us.  Without  mean- 
ing to,  and  by  no  reason  of  character,  but  merely 
because  of  the  inevitability  of  her  sex,  she  sowed 
the  first  and  at  that  time  invisible  seeds  of  an- 
tagonism. It  was  not  a  revival  of  that  same  an- 
tagonism when  we  were  boys  at  school.  We  were 
then,  in  those  days  at  the  creek,  and  for  many, 
many  years  had  been,  the  best  of  friends  in  the 
deepest  sense  of  the  word.  This  antagonism,  the 
seeds  of  which  she  planted  within  the  first  few 
weeks  of  her  life  with  us,  was,  as  I  say,  no  mere 
recrudescence  of  an  old  quarrel.  Such  a  thing 
would  be  inconceivable  between  two  grown  men 
who  had  fared  together  as  we  had  done. 

"To  begin  with — I  am  certain  of  this — we  were 
all  utterly  unconscious  of  it ;  she  no  less  than  Jona- 
than, or  than  I  was  myself.  It  may  have  had 
the  same  foundation  as  that  jealousy  which  had 


102  David  and  Jonathan 

existed  between  us  at  school ;  but  in  the  light  of 
all  that  happened,  I  am  confident  I  am  right  in 
placing  it  deeper  than  that.  It  was  far  cruder,  far 
more  elemental;  an  instinct, such  as,  in  the  civilized 
conditions  of  life  in  which  our  minds  had  been 
trained,  we  had  scarcely  if  ever  been  truly  made 
aware  of.  And  so  thick  was  the  veneer  of  civiliza- 
tion upon  us,  even  in  those  surroundings,  that 
long  whiles  passed  by  before  ever  we  became  con- 
sciously obedient  to  its  impulses. 

"As  I  look  back  now,  however,  I  see  in  myself 
the  first  answer  to  that  instinct  on  the  very  day 
when  she  led  us  by  suggestion  to  suppose  she  ex- 
pected some  celebration  of  her  birthday. 

"It  was  a  few  hours  after  she  had  informed  us  of 
the  coming  event,  that  I  was  going  through  the 
forest  to  fetch  the  day's  water  from  the  stream 
we  had  discovered  on  our  arrival,  the  exist- 
ence of  which,  indeed,  primarily  had  made 
the  creek  habitable.  This  excursion,  somewhat 
of  a  laborious  one,  we  took  in  turns;  a  regular 
duty  every  day — what  in  Canada  they  call  their 
chores. 

"On  my  return,  with  the  bucket  we  had  found  on 
the  Malaga's  boat,  I  heard  a  sound  of  whining  in 
the  thick  undergrowth  near  the  edge  of  the  rough 


Femininity  103 

track  we  had  cut  to  the  stream.  The  sight  of  a 
little  female  tree-bear,  scurrying  away  at  the  sound 
of  my  approach,  was  quite  sufficient  to  tell  me  what 
had  happened.  One  of  her  young  'uns  had  fallen 
from  his  perch,  and  not  all  the  king's  horses,  or  all 
the  king's  men,  as  expressed  in  her  piteous  matern- 
al anxieties,  could  set  the  wretched  little  beast  up 
again. 

' '  I  found  him  easily  enough.  He  was  whining  his 
heart  out  at  this  punishment,  probably  for  his  own 
disobedience,  but  was  quite  unhurt.  A  huge  patch 
of  tropical  moss,  as  thick  as  a  feather-bed,  had 
broken  his  fall,  and  though  he  looked  a  bit  dazed 
— he  must  have  fallen  only  a  few  moments  before 
— I  could  feel  no  bones  were  broken. 

"  How  the  deuce  to  get  him  back  again  up  those 
colossal  trees,  if  it  was  a  problem  to  his  mother, 
was  certainly  a  riddle  to  me.  And  then,  in  a  flash 
of  inspiration,  I  thought  of  Joan,  her  birthday,  and 
the  attendant  celebration,  the  observance  of  which 
she  had  so  cunningly  or  unconsciously  forced  upon 
our  consideration. 

"  Though  I  did  not  know  then,  I  do  realize  now, 
that  the  thought  of  presenting  her  with  this  birth- 
day gift  of  the  baby  tree-bear  brought  me  a  sense 
of  exaltation,  because  it  would  show  her  a  greater 


104  David  and  Jonathan 

appreciation  from  me  than  she  was  likely  to  get 
from  Jonathan,  my  best  friend  in  the  world. 

"  The  only  impulse  I  was  aware  of  at  the  time 
was  the  thought  that  she  would  go  into  ecstasies 
over  it,  if  there  were  such  an  emotion  as  the  ma- 
ternal instinct  in  her  at  all.  And  that,  I  suppose, 
I  took  for  granted.  I  had  no  small  degree  of  sym- 
pathy for  the  poor  little  beggar  myself. 

"Having  come  then  to  this  decision,  I  picked 
it  up  in  my  arms  and  carried  it  back  towards  the 
creek.  Just  before  I  reached  the  edge  of  the  forest, 
I  plaited  together  some  strong  vine  tendrils,  made 
a  halter  for  it,  and  tethered  it  up  where  it  would  be 
quite  safe  till  the  next  day.  Then,  that  evening, 
when  nothing  was  doing,  I  went  back  to  see  how  it 
was  and  give  it  some  honey,  of  which  there  was  a 
plentiful  supply,  if  one  only  had  the  patience  to 
look  for  it. 

"That  Jonathan  was  no  less  anxious  to  celebrate 
this  occasion  was  plain  enough  to  me.  He  sug- 
gested we  should  have  some  sort  of  a  feast,  and 
had  gone  down  in  the  small  canoe  we  had  built, 
to  the  beach,  there  spending  the  whole  day  fish- 
ing in  the  channel  that  connected  our  waterway 
through  the  swamp  with  the  sea. 

"  In  the  evening  he  had  returned  well  satisfied 


Femininity  105 

with  the  results.  There  was  every  prospect  of 
what  to  us  would  be  a  banquet,  and  the  more 
pleased  I  saw  he  was,  the  less  inclined  I  felt  to  tell 
him  of  the  present  I  had  found  for  her. 

' '  Here  was  the  beginning  of  secrecy.  For  he  too 
had  kept  his  secret  from  me.  On  the  way  back 
from  the  beach,  he  had  picked  a  collection  of  the 
most  gloriously  coloured  orchids  and  had  hidden 
them  somewhere  behind  the  hut.  I  saw  them,  by 
accident,  standing  in  a  wooden  bowl,  filled  with 
swamp  water,  keeping  fresh  for  the  decoration  of 
our  table  on  the  occasion  of  the  feast. 

"I  must  have  thought  nothing  of  that  secrecy  at 
the  time,  for  there  was  I  with  something  up  my 
own  sleeve  as  well.  I  never  supposed  he  was  vying 
with  me  for  a  place  in  her  estimation.  He  knew 
nothing  of  the  preparation  I  had  made  for  the 
event.  Indeed  I  am  confident  it  was  unconscious 
in  both  of  us.  Yet,  there  inevitably  it  was,  and  I 
realize  well  enough  now  how  on  the  day  of  her 
birthday  there  was  germinated  in  us  a  seed  of 
jealousy,  the  growth  of  which  no  civilization  could 
ignore,  no  gloss  of  speech  or  veneer  of  habits  and 
customs  could  disguise. 

"Truly  unconscious,  as  I  believe,  of  the  prepara- 
tions that  were  being  made  for  her,  she  appeared 


io6  David  and  Jonathan 

that  morning  as  usual.  With  some  surprise  she 
accepted  our  remembrance  of  it  and  the  congratu- 
lations we  offered  her.  Then  she  went  about  her 
work.  I  think  she  was  cutting  utensils — or  shall 
I  call  it  crockery — for  the  table,  out  of  a  soft  white 
wood  which  Jonathan  had  found  in  the  forest. 
All  the  morning  she  stuck  to  it,  as  though  the  day 
made  no  difference  to  her. 

"  It  had  made  a  difference,  however,  which,  in  a 
certain  degree,  must  have  been  conscious  enough. 
We  told  her  we  had  prepared  a  special  feast  for 
the  occasion.  This  was  our  common  secret.  She 
laughed  at  that,  and  called  us  both  sentimentalists. 

"  '  I  come  to  the  one  corner  of  the  world,'  said 
she,  'where  a  woman  might  be  excused  for  for- 
getting ail  about  her  age,  and  you  both  proceed  to 
rub  it  in.' 

"Jonathan  straightway  reminded  her  of  the  fact 
that  but  for  her  telling  us  we  should  have  known 
nothing  about  it.  She  smiled  at  him  for  saying  that. 
I  can't  describe  the  smile.  It  was  not  exactly 
that  she  felt  sorry  for  him  for  the  obviousness  of 
his  remark.  Neither  can  I  describe  her  look  at 
me  for  my  silence.  Whatever  she  meant  by  that 
look  and  that  smile,  she  disappeared  into  her  bed- 
room, appearing  later  at  the  feast,  where  the 


Femininity  107 

orchids  were  displayed  on  our  home-made  table, 
dressed  as  she  had  been  the  first  day  she  made  her 
appearance  after  her  recovery. 

"  We  both  looked  at  her  in  amazement,  and,  I 
should  imagine,  with  no  little  admiration,  too.  For 
the  last  few  weeks  we  had  seen  her  in  nothing  but 
an  unbecoming  suit  of  sailor's  trousers,  secured,  by 
straps  over  her  shoulders,  and,  in  appearance  at 
least,  had  come  to  regard  her  as  a  creature  much 
like  ourselves.  Here,  however,  was  a  woman,  and 
all  the  more  fascinating  by  contrast,  just  as  Re  jane 
was,  if  you  remember  it,  in  La  Passarelle,  when 
she  first  makes  her  appearance  in  beautiful  clothes 
in  the  second  act. 

"  Poor  old  Jonathan's  discomfort  can  well  be 
imagined.  He  had  come  so  much  to  regard  her — 
as  they  say  in  familiar  parlance  'in  those  trousers' 
— as  one  of  ourselves,  that  he  was  completely 
bowled  over  by  the  dramatic  situation  of  that 
change  of  dress.  He  forgot  all  about  his  flowers, 
which  he  had  gathered  with  such  trouble.  I  was 
none  too  comfortable  myself. 

"It  was  not  that  she  was  so  extraordinarily  well- 
dressed,  though  I  remembered  then  how  the  first 
thing  she  had  asked  me  to  do  for  her  was  to  make 
a  coat-hanger  on  which  she  could  hang  her  things, 


io8  David  and  Jonathan 

in  case,  as  she  said,  'a  ship  does  take  us  off  and  I 
have  to  behave  demurely  again.'  Well-dressed 
was  not  the  description,  notwithstanding  the  coat- 
hanger,  for  her  things  were  badly  creased.  She 
pointed  out  this  fact  to  us  straightway.  It  was, 
to  put  it  concisely,  that  she  was  a  beautiful  woman, 
the  more  beautiful  to  us,  perhaps,  who  for  nearly 
the  last  two  months,  had  seen  nothing  but  an  able 
seaman  whose  strength  we  had  tacitly  agreed  upon 
must  not  be  over-taxed. 

"  '  Don't  look  so  amazed,'  she  said  as  she  stood 
there  in  the  doorway  laughing.  'It's  my  birthday 
—mayn't  I  dress  up  ? ' 

"We  all  sat  down,  and  Jonathan  and  I  began 
paying  her  attentions,  quite  unconsciously  waiting 
on  her  with  excess  of  zeal ;  or,  if  we  were  aware  of  it, 
telling  ourselves  that  it  was  because  it  was  her  birth- 
day. Lord !  How  she  must  have  laughed  in  those 
inner  recesses  of  her  thoughts,  where  a  woman 
keeps  everything  wholly  and  securely  to  herself ! 

"It  was  she,  naturally  enough,  who  noticed  the 
orchids,  and  long  before  Jonathan  realized  how 
their  existence  had  slipped  out  of  his  mind. 

' '  '  Who  got  the  flowers  ? '  she  asked  as  she  sat 
down.  She  looked  from  one  to  the  other  of  us. 
There  was  no  need  for  any  reply.  Jonathan's  face 


Femininity  109 

was  a  study,  if  not  in  scarlet,  then  of  that  expres- 
sion which  goes  with  the  colour. 

"  'You  got  them!'  she  exclaimed,  and  we  could 
see  how  surprised  she  was  that  the  thought  had 
come  from  him.  So  surprised  was  she,  indeed,  that 
she  leant  forward  across  the  table  and  just  touched 
his  hand  in  the  simplest  and  most  unaffected  ex- 
pression of  gratitude  one  could  have  imagined. 
No  one  on  earth  could  have  accused  her  of  any 
purpose  or  impulse  but  that  of  gratefulness,  but 
the  moment  she  had  done  it,  no  one  could  have 
been  so  blind  as  not  to  observe  the  effect  it  had. 

"  It  was  as  though  in  that  instant  she  had  set  her 
choice  on  Jonathan.  I  know  he  felt  that.  I  know 
also  that  at  the  expression  which  swept  over  his 
face  and  the  sight  of  her  hand  touching  his,  I  felt 
the  blood  in  me  rush  like  a  hot  spring,  boiling 
beneath  the  surface  of  the  ground.  It  was  all  I 
could  do  not  to  make  a  fool  of  myself;  not  to  get 
up  then  and  there,  saying  to  myself  I  would  leave 
them  to  their  love-making  in  peace,  if  that  was 
their  inclination. 

' '  Thank  Heaven,  I  did  nothing  of  the  kind.  She, 
nevertheless,  saw  the  effect  of  what  she  had  done, 
and  the  next  second  had  taken  her  hand  away  with 
a  quick  gesture  and  a  nervous  laugh. " 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   FIRST    BOARD  MEETING 

"T  WAITED  until  the  feast  was  over,"  David 
goes  on,  "and  then,  as  casually  as  I  could,  I 
said  I  had  got  a  present  for  her.  I  flattered  myself 
that  the  tone  of  my  voice  was  most  successful, 
but  have  often  wondered  since  whether  it  really 
deceived  her. 

"  She  appeared  to  be  deceived.  In  any  case  her 
excitement  and  curiosity  was  not  assumed.  She 
became  like  a  child,  wanting  to  know  what  it  was. 
Then  I  brought  in  my  little  beast  of  a  bear,  tum- 
bling about  at  the  end  of  his  plaited  halter,  like  a 
collie  pup,  all  hair  and  no  shape,  with  a  couple  of 
eyes  like  the  black  heads  of  hatpins  sticking  a 
yard  out  of  his  head. 

"  She  had  often  seen  tree-bears  in  the  forest,  and 
needed  no  introduction  to  know  what  it  was.  The 
next  instant  it  was  in  her  arms,  and  for  a  couple  of 
healthy  men,  during  those  moments  while  she 

no 


The  First  Board  Meeting  in 

talked  nonsense  to  it,  I  suppose  we  must  have 
looked  the  biggest  fools  in  creation. 

"There  was  one  second,  however,  when  she 
glanced  her  gratitude  at  me  over  the  top  of  its 
head.  In  sole  possession  of  that  look,  I  went  out 
into  the  creek  as  satisfied  as  if  I  had  shot  a  brace 
of  lions  off  my  own  bat,  which  is  a  hopeless  con- 
fusion of  simile  but  conveys  admirably  what  I  felt. 

"For  the  rest  of  the  day,  the  little  beast  mono- 
polized the  whole  of  her  time,  and  in  all  the  affec- 
tion she  bestowed  upon  it,  I  felt  I  had  some  sort  of 
proprietary  share.  I  knew  Jonathan  had  the  sense 
of  being  right  out  of  it.  The  possession  of  the 
creature  had  completely  laid  hold — as  I  had 
guessed  it  would — upon  the  hidden  depths  of  her 
imagination.  She  had  forgotten  his  flowers;  for- 
gotten the  awkwardness  of  that  moment  when  she 
had  touched  his  hand.  And  I  have  no  reason  to 
deny  that  I  was  glad.  I  felt  I  had  won  the  day 
which  had  begun  so  well  in  his  favour.  What  is 
more,  I  seemed  to  sense  some  moments  when,  as 
he  looked  at  that  animal  in  her  arms,  he  almost 
hated  me.  Strangest  of  all,  I  said  to  myself  that 
he  could  hate  me  if  he  felt  so  inclined.  It  mattered 
less  to  me  than  the  thought  that  I  had  pleased 
her." 


112  David  and  Jonathan 

In  this  manner,  David  has  described  the  first 
palpable  change  which  had  come  about  in  their 
friendship.  I  can  quite  understand  how  after  a 
night's  sleep  with  doubtless  not  a  few  hours  of 
thought  over  all  that  had  happened  that  day,  they 
were  not  a  little  shocked  to  discover  the  change  it 
had  wrought  in  them.  I  can  quite  understand, 
too,  how,  realizing  it,  they  did  all  they  knew  to 
pull  themselves  together. 

Civilization,  after  all,  was  not  so  far  behind  them 
in  those  first  few  weeks.  To  the  whole  situation 
they  applied  those  arguments  they  would  have  used 
had  they  been  in  less  unconventional  surroundings, 
and  then  the  folly  of  it  all  became  apparent.  By 
the  next  morning  they  were  both  laughing  at  them- 
selves, when  it  needed  but  a  word  from  one  or  the 
other  for  the  whole  thing  to  be  thrashed  out  in  the 
broad  light  of  logic  and  common  sense. 

Jonathan  was  the  first  to  speak  the  necessary 
word.  He,  the  most  completely  of  the  two,  had 
deceived  himself  with  good  sound  reasons. 

"Unless  we  take  damned  good  care  of  our- 
selves," he  said,  "this  girl's  going  to  make  a  hope- 
less mess  of  all  our  plans  to  get  away.  We  aren't 
here  for  the  fun  of  the  thing,  and,  as  far  as  I  can 
help  it,  we're  not  going  to  stay  for  the  fun  of  it 


The  First  Board  Meeting  113 

either.  It's  no  good  working  against  each  other. 
We've  got  to  work  together." 

For  answer,  David  just  took  hold  of  his  hand 
and  wrung  it. 

"My  dear  old  chap,"  he  said,  with  the  deepest 
sincerity,  "I've  been  wanting  to  say  something 
as  sensible  as  that  ever  since  I  got  up." 

"Well — she's  nothing  to  us, "  said  Jonathan. 

"Nothing,"  said  David. 

"We never  saw  her  till  three  weeks  ago." 

"That's  all — except  that  I'd  seen  her  on  the 
boat,"  David  added. 

' '  For  that  matter,  so  had  I, ' '  said  Jonathan. 

"Well — you  hadn't  noticed  her." 

"No — but  what  the  devil  does  that  matter?" 

"It  doesn't  matter  a  damn,"  said  David. 

"The  whole  point  is  that  she's  nothing  to  us," 
Jonathan  continued,  "but  if  we  go  on  fooling  over 
her  and  fussing  about  her,  like  we  did  yesterday, 
our  little  limited  company  of  interests  is  going  to  go 
to  blazes.  We  shall  all  be  at  loggerheads,  when  we 
ought  to  be  hanging  together.  There's  only  one 
way  to  put  a  stop  to  it. ' ' 

Not  seeing  it  so  easy  a  matter  as  that,  David 
inquired  what  it  was. 

"Tell  her,"  said  Jonathan — "tell  her  what  our 


H4  David  and  Jonathan 

interests  are — that  they're  not  in  seeing  who  can 
pay  her  the  most  acceptable  attentions,  but  in 
finding  a  way  out  of  this  beastly  place  as  quickly 
as  we  can,  and  that  she  must  co-operate  in  every 
way  it's  possible  for  her  to  do  so.  It  is  no  good  her 
dancing  in  in  a  Bond  Street  costume  when  there's 
work  to  be  done  all  day,  and  every  day.  We  must 
make  our  first  shot  by  launching  the  boat,  and  if 
we  get  her  off,  we  may  be  some  days  at  sea,  with 
the  ultimate  possibility  of  returning  here  after  all. 
What  I've  been  aiming  at  is  to  make  this  place  as 
comfortable  a  base  for  operations  as  possible,  and 
then,  when  that's  done  as  a  safeguard,  to  leave  no 
stone  unturned  to  get  away." 

This  was,  as  David  calls  it,  the  rock-bottom  of 
common  sense.  They  were  all  dependent  the  one 
upon  the  other.  Without  each  other's  help,  with- 
out each  other's  co-operation,  matters  were  almost 
worse  than  if  they  were  individuals  alone  on  that 
desolate  shore.  He  made,  however,  a  sensible 
amendment  to  Jonathan's  suggestions. 

"Tell  her,"  he  said — "tell  her  by  all  means. 
Let's  have  a  serious  talk  with  her.  But  it's  not  a 
bit  of  good  putting  it  down  to  her  dressing  up  in 
her  Bond  Street  fallals.  Don't  let's  say  anything 
about  that." 


The  First  Board  Meeting  115 

It  was  hard  to  persuade  Jonathan  on  this,  es- 
pecially without  giving  him  very  definite  reasons. 
His  method  of  dealing  with  women  in  vital  issues 
was  much  that  of  the  bull  in  the  china  shop. 

"Why  not  tell  her  exactly  what  we  mean,  and 
have  done  with  it?  "  said  he. 

"Because  what  we  mean,"  replied  David, 
' '  is  about  the  weakest  part  of  what  we  want  to  say. 
What  we  mean  is  that  we're  afraid  of  her  sex,  and 
what  we  want  to  say  is,  that  we  don't  care  a 
tu'penny  cuss  about  it  one  way  or  another." 

The  honesty  of  this  was  too  subtle  for  Jonathan. 
What  he  wanted  was,  without  any  two  ways  about 
it,  to  blow  the  ship's  whistle  for  all  ashore  and  haul 
down  the  Blue  Peter  from  the  masthead.  But  it 
was  nothing  like  so  simple  as  that. 

"Say  it  your  own  way  then,"  said  he,  "but  let's 
have  her  in  now,  and  get  it  over." 

She  came  at  once  to  David's  calling,  dressed  as 
she  had  been  for  those  past  few  weeks  in  her  sea- 
man's trousers  suspended  with  straps  over  her 
shoulders.  There  was  not  a  suggestion  in  her 
appearance  that  she  ever  wanted  to  put  on — what 
David  called — her  Bond  Street  fallals  again. 

They  both  of  them  felt  a  little  awkward  as  she 
entered,  when,  divining  the  sense  of  something  in 


n6  David  and  Jonathan 

the  air,  she  stood  for  an  instant  looking  from  one 
to  the  other.  David  thrust  forward  the  best  seat — 
an  arm-chair,  scooped  out  of  the  trunk  of  a  tree 
they  had  felled.  Softened  with  a  cushion  she  had 
made  and  stuffed  with  the  feathers  of  some  birds 
they  had  trapped,  it  was  far  from  uncomfortable. 
She  took  it  with  a  questioning  look  at  them,  and 
then,  before  David  could  speak,  she  said : 

"Have  I  done  anything  wrong? " 

Straightway  he  laughed,  and  even  Jonathan, 
set  upon  the  business  in  hand,  allowed  his  mouth 
to  relax  into  a  smile. 

"Can't  we  call  you  in  for  a  talk  without  your 
thinking  that?"  said  David.  "We're  a  limited 
liability  company,  not  yet  floated — but  we  want 
to  float  one  day,  if  we  get  the  chance." 

Still  she  looked  from  one  to  the  other,  knowing 
they  had  not  called  her  in  to  tell  her  that. 

"Well — what  have  you  got  to  say?"  she  asked 
in  that  guarded  and  suspicious  way  women  have 
when  you  feel  they  are  bristling  with  receptive 
points  of  instinct,  ready  to  take  the  first  impression 
that  comes. 

"Well,  only  this,"  replied  David,  no  less  on 
guard  himself,  "that  we  want  to  get  out  of  this 
place.  That  sounds  like  a  platitude,  but  it  needs 


The  First  Board  Meeting  117 

to  be  said,  because  it  entails  certain  things  we 
want  to  talk  to  you  about." 

"Go  on, "  she  said  quietly. 

"Well,  there  are  two  ways  of  escape,"  he  con- 
tinued— "at  least,  two  ways  that  lie  in  our  com- 
pass to  attempt.  The  chance  of  a  passing  ship 
we've  provided  for  with  signals  as  well  as  we  can. 
That's  on  the  lap  of  the  gods." 

"There  are  so  many  things  in  that  lap,"  said 
she. 

"Exactly.  We  can't  leave  it  alone  to  that. 
And  with  the  other  two  ways,  there  are  risks — 
pretty  considerable  ones.  What  we  want  to  know 
is,  if  you're  prepared,  when  you  hear  what  they 
are,  to  share  them." 

"What  are  they?" 

Jonathan  interposed  here,  telling  her  of  the 
attempt  they  intended  to  make  through  the  forest. 

"So  far  as  I  can  calculate,"  he  said,  "we're 
something  like  fifty  or  seventy  miles — maybe 
more — from  the  nearest  place  of  habitation.  When 
we  get  to  that  it'll  be  no  more  than  a  few  huts. 
However,  it  would  be  in  touch  with  the  world  again. 
But,  even  so,  that  fifty  or  seventy  miles  is  through 
tropical  forest.  You  can't  guess  what  that  means 
by  just  looking  about  you  here,  where  we've  cut 


n8  David  and  Jonathan 

a  track  to  get  the  water  every  day,  and  have 
mapped  out  a  passage  back  to  the  beach.  It's 
nothing  like  that.  Over  seventy  miles  of  forest, 
and  not  even  knowing  his  destination,  a  man  has 
about  ten  chances  in  a  hundred  of  coming  through. 
A  mile  a  day  is  sometimes  good  going.  We  can't 
carry  provisions  for  seventy  days.  Our  food  is  not 
in  tabloid  form.  The  other  chance  is  the  sea; 
launching  the  boat  across  that  surf  and  getting 
out  to  a  passing  ship — a  matter  of  twenty  or  thirty 
miles,  perhaps — limited  provisions  again ;  or  mak- 
ing down  the  coast  till  we  come  to  one  of  the  vil- 
lages that  hang  on  the  edge  of  the  sea.  The  risk  is 
always  the  same — starvation.  As  far  as  the  sea  is 
concerned,  I  don't  think  we  could  launch  the  boat, 
so  that  chance  is  vague.  The  greatest  chance  of 
all  is  getting  through  the  forest,  and  there  lies  the 
greatest  risk  of  all.  It'll  be  a  cut  six  of  one  and  a 
dried  half  a  dozen  of  the  other." 

All  this  apparently  Jonathan  must  have  said 
in  that  tone  of  voice — I  think  I  have  alluded  to  it 
before — as  though  he  were  giving  orders  to  his 
foreman. 

"Did  you  call  me  in  here, "  she  asked  proudly, 
"because  you  thought  I  wasn't  prepared  to  share 
any  risks  that  were  going?" 


The  First  Board  Meeting  119 

There  must  have  been  something  besides  pride 
in  the  note  of  her  voice,  for  David  was  very  quick 
to  answer  that. 

"No — no — no,"  he  said  hurriedly.  "We  know 
you're  game  enough  for  anything.  It  isn't  that  a 
bit.  It  is  that  we  must  work  together;  help,  not 
hinder  each  other.  We  must  look  upon  the  whole 
business,  as  I  said  in  the  beginning,  as  a  limited 
company.  Each  one  must  be  the  same  as  the 
other.  In  this  deserted  place,  we're  right  up 
against  it,  and  the  ordinary  civilized  laws  don't 
exist." 

In  a  moment  of  inspiration  he  thought  of  a 
better  way  of  putting  it. 

"It  all  amounts  to  this,"  he  said.  "We  were 
afraid  you  hadn't  got  the  hang  of  the  situation, 
that  you  wanted  to  be  treated  with  extra  atten- 
tions because  you  were  a  woman — whereas,  in 
this  situation  we  find  ourselves  flung  into,  there's 
no  such  thing  as  sex  at  all.  We  want  to  get  out, 
and  that's  all  there  is  about  it." 

He  looked  at  Jonathan  and  emphatically  Jon- 
athan nodded  his  head.  He  only  wished  he 
could  have  wrapped  it  up  so  nicely,  yet  said  it  as 
plainly  himself. 

"David's  got  it  in  a  nutshell,"  he  said  abruptly. 


120  David  and  Jonathan 

"In  an  affair  like  this  everybody's  one  of  a  com- 
pany, and  we've  got  to  hang  together." 

She  listened  quite  quietly  to  all  this  after  that 
first  moment  of  pride  when,  as  David  had  seen, 
she  was  certainly  hurt.  When  Jonathan  had 
finished,  she  said : 

"Then  I  mustn't  persuade  you  to  give  me  little 
presents  on  my  birthday — or  pay  me  any  atten- 
tions of  any  kind,  because  that  interferes  with  the 
work,  and  creates  a  sense  of  friction  in  the  com- 
pany. That's  right — isn't  it?" 

They  looked  at  her.  They  looked  at  each  other, 
but  said  nothing. 

"That's  what  you  mean — isn't  it?"  she  re- 
peated. '  'And  I'm  not  to  put  on  my  best,  because 
it's  my  only  frock,  as  in  a  situation  like  this,  there's 
no  such  thing  as  sex.  I  believe  I've  got  your 
meaning,  haven't  I?" 

"You've  got  the  gist  of  it,"  said  Jonathan. 

"If  you're  going  to  take  it,"  added  David,  "in 
the  spirit  in  which  it  was  meant." 

She  looked  at  them,  smiled,  but  said  no  more. 
Then,  nodding  her  head,  she  went  straightway  out 
of  the  hut.  They  remained  for  a  moment  staring 
at  each  other  when  she  had  gone.  David  was  the 
first  to  break  the  silence. 


The  First  Board  Meeting  121 

"We're  a  couple  of  the  most  consummate  fools 
that  God  ever  made,"  said  he. 

In  amazement  Jonathan  asked  why. 

"She  understands  all  right,"  he  said.  "She 
told  us  she  did.  Why,  she  realized  we  were  hinting 
about  her  rigging  herself  up  in  that  dress  yester- 
day. I  thought  that  showed  quite  a  nice  sense  of 
understanding." 

"Oh,  yes — she  understands,"  David  replied. 
"There  wasn't  a  word  or  a  look  she  didn't  under- 
stand, and  a  good  deal  better  than  we  do  ourselves. 
You've  travelled  all  over  the  world,  and  you  talk 
about  elemental  laws  and  symbols  and  impulsory 
instincts  as  though  they  were  things  that  had  to  be 
learnt  by  experience  before  a  man  can  set  his  life 
by  them.  That  girl's  got  more  knowledge  of  them 
in  the  tip  of  her  little  finger,  without  going  out  of  a 
London  drawing-room,  than  you've  collected  in 
fifteen  years'  tramping  round  the  world.  We're  a 
couple  of  consummate  fools  ever  to  have  said  a 
word,"  he  repeated.  "Of  course  she  guessed 
about  the  blooming  dress.  And,  after  all  this  jaw, 
she  knows  a  damned  sight  more  about  it  than  we 
do." 

When  he  had  said  that,  he  just  fetched  his 
bucket,  and  went  off  across  the  creek  to  the  forest. 


122  David  and  Jonathan 

It  was  his  turn  again  to  fetch  the  water,  and 
he  went,  as  he  says  himself,  in  the  worst  mood 
possible. 

"As  I  crossed  the  creek,"  he  says,  "I  saw  her 
working  hard  at  her  wood-carving.  The  baby 
tree-bear  was  lying  asleep  on  the  sand  by  her  side. 
Apparently  she  didn't  see  me,  but  as  I  went  by  at 
some  distance,  the  little  beggar  woke  up,  yawned, 
and  stretched  himself,  whereupon  she  took  him  up 
in  her  arms  and  kissed  him  as  though  he  were  the 
only  friend  she  had  on  earth.  I  tripped  up  over  a 
root,  watching  her,  and  swore  as  I've  seldom  done 
in  my  life  before." 


CHAPTER  XV 

SEX 

the  whole  of  the  next  week,  she  kept  her 
distance.  There  was  nothing  small  or  petty 
about  her  attitude.  To  all  appearances,  she  talked 
to  them  the  same  as  usual,  but  in  indescribable 
ways  they  were  made  to  feel  that  they  were  out- 
side the  pale.  David  seems  unable  to  describe  it 
better  than  that. 

"It  was  a  sensation,"  he  says,  "that  we  were, 
of  course,  inevitable  to  the  situation.  We  could 
not  be  avoided,  and  she  realized  it  would  be  foolish 
on  her  part  to  disassociate  herself  from  us  in  any 
way.  But  there  would  come  a  look  into  her  eyes 
often,  as  though  she  were  miles  away  from  us  in  her 
thoughts.  She  was  not  married,  it  is  true,  and 
though,  as  far  as  I  was  concerned,  she  had  not  told 
me  of  any  love  affair  she  had  left  behind  in  Eng- 
land, she  seemed  all  that  time  to  be  thinking  of  one, 

123 


124  David  and  Jonathan 

There  is  a  look  in  a  woman's  eye  when  she  is  think- 
ing about  a  man.  It  is  not  necessarily  sentimental 
at  all,  but  is  certainly  different  from  any  other. 
That  look  she  often  had." 

From  all  I  can  read  in  David's  script,  Jonathan 
seems  to  have  been  scarcely,  if  at  all,  affected  by 
this  change  of  manner.  He  worked  on,  twelve  and 
sometimes  fourteen  hours  a  day,  slogging  at  it  like 
a  slave,  to  get  the  place  really  comfortable  and 
safe  before  he  undertook  that  first  attempt  at 
their  escape  by  sea. 

And  during  this  time,  day  by  day,  Joan  seemed 
to  improve  in  her  appearance.  Scrupulously  she 
adhered  to  the  garments  they  had  practically  pre- 
scribed for  her,  but  it  seemed  to  David  that  she  was 
doing  her  hair  with  greater  consideration.  There 
was  as  well  a  finer  glow  of  colour  in  her  cheeks 
and  lips.  Even  her  eyes  seemed  brighter.  Again 
and  again  he  would  find  himself  looking  at  her  and 
thinking  of  those  few  moments  when  he  had  held 
her  in  his  arms  as  he  carried  her  up  the  saloon 
companion-way. 

She  had  never  asked,  and  David  had  preferred 
not  to  tell  her,  who  had  saved  her  life  on  the  ship. 
She  did  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  know  that  anyone 


Sex  125 

had  gone  to  any  particular  risk  or  trouble  about  it. 
She  had  found  herself  in  the  boat ,  and  her  experi- 
ences there  had  been  such  that  she  did  not  care 
particularly  to  talk  about  them.  I  am  not  sur- 
prised at  that.  Upon  Jonathan,  who  had  saved 
so  many  lives  that  night,  the  fact  had  made  but 
little  impression.  He  had  not  thought  to  inform 
her  of  the  circumstances. 

An  impression,  however,  was  apparently  made 
upon  him  by  the  increasing  improvement  in  her 
appearance.  He  mentioned  it  at  breakfast  one 
morning. 

"This  sort  of  life's  agreeing  with  you,"  said  he. 
' '  I  thought  you'd  got  to  be  yourself  again  three  or 
four  weeks  ago.  But  you  seem  to  be  piling  on 
health  every  day." 

This  was  the  first  time  she  had  looked  really  and 
consciously  pleased  with  either  of  them  since  that 
board  meeting  of  the  company  in  the  hut.  This 
was  her  own  name  for  it.  Jonathan  had  called  to 
her  one  day  afterwards,  when  she  had  come  up, 
saying — 

"What,  another  board  meeting?" 

After  breakfast  on  this  morning,  when  he  had 
made  his  remark  about  her  health,  she  asked 
Jonathan  to  come  and  inspect  her  wood-carving. 


126  David  and  Jonathan 

She  kept  it  all  in  her  hut  and  had  not  previously 
shown  it  to  either  of  them  until  it  was  ready.  Jona- 
than stayed,  talking  with  her  outside  her  hut  for 
nearly  an  hour,  while  David,  the  other  side  of  the 
creek,  worked  at  the  finishing  of  the  arm  they  were 
building  to  the  Malaga's  boat  to  equip  her  for  the 
experiment  of  taking  the  waves  for  which  those 
native  surf -boats  are  intended. 

Inspecting  his  work  later  that  morning,  Jona- 
than declared  it  to  be  a  slovenly  performance. 

"You've  got  a  strand  there,"  said  he,  "that'll 
snap  with  the  first  wave  that  puts  any  pressure 
on  it." 

I  can  quite  appreciate  the  fact  that  by  this  time 
David  was  not  in  the  best  of  tempers. 

"I  felt  inclined,"  he  says,  "to  let  them  dree 
their  weird,  only  that  some  instinct  of  self -justi- 
fication, pride,  anything  you  like  to  call  it, 
asserted  the  belief  in  my  mind  that  I  was,  in  my 
own  way,  as  entitled  as  was  Jonathan  to  win  her 
approval. 

"That  either  of  us,  so  quickly,  should  have 
thought  it  necessary  to  win  it,  of  course,  is  in- 
teresting in  itself,  though  nothing  to  be  so  greatly 
surprised  about.  She  was  an  attractive  woman. 
The  passing  thought  which  had  pitched  through 


Sex  127 

my  mind  on  the  night  of  the  fire  is  enough  to  prove 
that,  but  it  does  not  wholly,  in  my  conception  of 
it,  justify  our  swiftly  developed  sense  of  rivalry. 
There  are  plenty  of  attractive  women  in  the'world. 
Jonathan  had  met  them;  so  had  I.  For  a  woman 
to  be  attractive  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  one 
wants  to  harness  one's  life  to  hers  for  good  and  all. 
But  such  a  situation  as  this  did  not  lead  to  any 
conclusion  which  could  be  avoided  at  the  eleventh 
hour  by  the  dropping  of  the  Blue  Peter  from  the 
masthead,  or  a  discreet  avoidance  of  meetings 
when  there  would  be  plenty  of  other  men  to  take 
one's  place  in  her  thoughts. 

"We  were  at  the  top  of  that  hill  which  is  both 
precipitous  and  inevitable,  yet  neither  of  us  seemed 
to  pause  for  consideration  of  what  it  would  involve 
to  coast  down  into  the  valley  from  which  there 
would  be  no  more  climbing  to  those  heights  where 
we  could,  as  we  had  so  far  chosen,  breathe  the  hill 
winds  of  freedom. 

"I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  since,"  he  adds 
at  the  end  of  that  chapter  of  his  script,  "that  the 
instinct  of  the  sexes  is  still  far  more  elemental  in  us 
and  more  easily  roused  than  any  other  and  is  only 
distracted  by  the  thousand  and  various  interests 
with  which  civilization  occupies  our  minds." 


128  David  and  Jonathan 

David  concludes  what  I  have  called  a  chapter, 
but  which  would  better  have  been  named  a  section 
of  his  manuscript,  with  that  remark.  In  recon- 
structing the  whole  story,  however,  I  have  thought 
it  advisable  to  add  the  following  description  of  an 
incident  which  bears  upon  the  situation  as  it  had 
developed  up  to  the  time  when  they  made  their 
first  bid  for  freedom. 

About  three  days  before  that  which  was  set  out 
for  their  great  adventure,  David  was  returning 
from  the  spring  where  they  got  their  daily  supply 
of  water.  By  some  accident  he  had  kicked  over 
the  bucket  and  felt  it  incumbent  upon  him  for  his 
carelessness,  without  saying  anything  more  about 
it,  to  go  and  refill  it  himself. 

When  he  was  about  a  hundred  yards  from  the 
creek,  he  heard  a  commotion  amongst  a  troop  of 
monkeys  over  his  head.  They  were  scampering 
along  the  branches  of  the  trees,  swinging  from  one 
limb  to  another  as  though  the  devil  and  all  were 
at  their  heels.  Creeping  forward  as  softly  as  he 
could  to  find  out  what  it  was,  he  saw  Joan  half 
way  up  a  tree,  just  off  the  edge  of  their  water  track. 
Certainly  it  had  been  an  easy  one  to  climb,  but 
that  made  him  none  the  less  surprised  at  seeing 
her  there.  What  was  she  up  to?  He  thought  for  a 


Sex  129 

moment  that  she  was  trying  to  return  her  baby 
tree-bear  to  its  natural  environment  and  an  instant 
of  chagrin,  almost  amounting  to  resentment,  kept 
him  there  a  moment,  motionless  as  he  watched  her. 

It  was  obvious  she  had  not  seen  him.  Without 
knowledge  of  the  accident  to  the  bucket,  that  was 
the  last  place  she  might  have  expected  to  see  either 
of  them.  The  water  track  served  no  other  purpose 
for  their  needs.  He  made  out  quickly  enough  she 
had  not  got  the  tree-bear  with  her.  Her  hands  were 
empty.  Then  what  was  it  she  was  after? 

She  had  found  a  comfortable  seat  in  the  fork  of 
the  tree  and  from  there  leaned  out  and  was  picking 
a  whole  cluster  of  deep  scarlet  orchids  of  some 
climbing  variety  that  were  blooming  in  a  lightsome 
gap  of  the  trees. 

David  was  just  about  to  hurry  forward  to  her 
assistance,  when  he  stopped.  She  had  thrust  the 
blossoms  into  her  pocket,  plucked  without  stem  or 
thought  for  preservation.  It  was  the  petals  alone 
she  was  collecting.  What  for?  Out  of  another 
pocket,  she  fetched  a  little  mirror.  Holding  it  up 
to  her  face,  as  she  sat  there,  she  looked  at  its  re- 
flection. There  was  no  mistaking  what  it  was. 
Then,  taking  a  petal  in  her  fingers,  she  crushed  it 
and  rubbed  it  first  on  her  lips,  then  on  her  cheeks, 


130  David  and  Jonathan 

regarding  the  operation  all  the  time  in  her  glass, 
and  finally  throwing  the  bruised  petal  away.  That 
being  done,  she  applied  her  puff,  though  heaven 
knows  what  small  quantity  of  powder  she  must 
have  had  left  by  that  time.  Finally,  with  the 
completion  of  her  purpose,  she  was  just  proceeding 
to  descend  as  David  moved  forward  and  then  she 
caught  sight  of  him,  when  every  movement  in  her 
body  was  arrested.  He  had  seen.  He  must  have 
seen.  She  knew  it  as  surely  as  if  he  had  shouted 
out  his  knowledge  and  with  it  all  the  things  she 
knew  must  be  in  his  mind  about  her  with  the  dis- 
covery he  had  made. 

No  sub-editing  of  his  script  in  so  subtle  and 
interesting  a  situation  as  this  can  serve  my  purpose. 
The  whole  unexpurgated  account,  as  he  gives  it,  is 
a  thousand  times  more  valuable  in  the  first  person 
than  I  could  ever  hope  to  make  it. 

"I  came  forward,"  he  says,  "standing  at  the 
bottom  of  the  tree,  asking  if  I  could  help  her  down. 

"'It  won't  be  such  a  simple  matter  as  it  was 
getting  up, '  said  I. 

'  'She  declined  any  assistance  I  could  give  her  and 
began  at  once  to  descend,  with  considerable  diffi- 
culty, as  I  had  promised  her.  At  last  she  stood  on 


Sex  131 

the  ground  beside  me,  brushing  her  clothes  with 
flickings  of  her  hand,  for  all  the  world  like  a 
naughty  schoolboy  caught  in  the  act  of  robbing  a 
farmer's  orchard.  The  only  difference  was  that 
I  did  not  feel  at  all  like  the  farmer  whose  fruit  has 
been  stolen.  There  was  no  such  thing  as  righteous 
indignation  in  my  mind. 

"  If  any  word  can  describe  my  sensations,  that 
word  is — fear.  I  felt  suddenly  afraid  of  her;  afraid 
of  her  knowledge  of  the  power  of  her  sex  and  the 
evident  determination  in  her  mind,  which  this  in- 
cident proved,  to  make  use  of  it. 

"  The  attitude  I  assumed — the  only  one  possible 
— was  one  of  superior  amusement  at  my  discovery. 
It  was  far  from  what,  in  my  deeper  consciousness,  I 
really  felt.  There  was,  moreover,  no  possibility 
of  pretending  I  had  not  seen.  Had  it  existed  for  a 
moment  in  my  mind,  she,  at  least,  gave  me  no 
chance  of  it. 

"Appreciating  quickly  enough  that  secrecy  and  a 
tacit  understanding  in  silence  of  the  matter  would 
merely  aggravate  its  importance  in  my  mind,  she 
seized,  by  instinct,  the  only  logical  consequence  of 
her  behaviour.  She  had  it  out  with  me  straight 
away. 

'I  suppose,'  she  said,  and  with  a  smile  super- 


132  David  and  Jonathan 

ficially  full  of  good  humour  but  which  for  that 
very  reason  seemed  the  more  dangerous  to  me 
— 'I  suppose  you  think  it  more  or  less  silly  for  a 
woman  to  think  about  her  appearance  in  primitive 
sort  of  surroundings  like  this  where  there  are  no 
women  to  notice  how  she  looks  one  way  or  another. ' 

"I  felt  a  twitch  of  laughter  somewhere  in  my 
mind  at  the  clever  way  in  which  she  ignored  the 
subject  of  sex.  I  don't  think  that  laughter  could 
have  been  seen  in  my  eyes,  for  she  went  on  im- 
perturbably. 

'"If  you  want  to  cut  a  woman  right  off  from 
civilization,'  she  continued,  'I  expect  you'd 
have  to  take  her  mirror  away  from  her.  If  she 
has  one' — she  produced  her  own  little  pocket  affair 
from  some  receptacle  in  her  garments — 'she's 
bound  to  look  at  it,  and  if  she  looks  at  it,  she's 
bound  to  see  that  her  complexion  is  going  to  the 
dogs  unless  she  takes  care  of  it.  But  then  possibly 
you  don't  realize  what  her  complexion  is  to  a 
woman.  There  was  one  of  those  scarlet  orchids 
in  that  bunch  of  flowers  Jonathan  got  for  my  birth- 
day. That's  when  I  first  thought  of  it.  I  tried  it 
that  evening.  It  squeezes  out  a  lovely,  deep,  red 
juice.  It  may  be  bad  for  the  skin.  I  don't  know. 
I  haven't  found  any — what  they  call — deleterious 


Sex  133 

effects  yet.  Oh,  my  heavens!  Are  you  going  to 
stand  there  forever,  just  looking  at  me  and  saying 
nothing?' 

"She  found  my  silence  more  critical  than  she 
could  bear.  In  all  that  flow  of  talk,  her  effort  at 
passing  off  the  situation  was  spent.  She  could  do 
no  more.  Yet  there  was  I,  still  uncommitted  by 
anything  I  had  said,  facing  her  with  a  persistent 
silence  that  must  have  seemed  too  callously  critical 
for  words.  It  was  far  less  critical  than  she  sup- 
posed. The  more  I  saw  her  intention  to  ignore  that 
question  of  sex,  explaining  it  upon  grounds  of  mere 
personal  vanity,  the  more  fear  I  felt  of  what  all 
this  would  come  to  in  the  end. 

"  'I  don't  know  that  there's  anything  for  me  to 
say,'  I  replied  at  last.  'You've  explained  it. 
However  odd  it  may  have  appeared  for  a  moment 
to  see  a  woman  dressed  in  sailor's  trousers  sitting 
half-way  up  a  tree  in  an  African  forest  and  rouge- 
ing  her  lips  with  the  juice  of  a  scarlet  orchid,  you 
have  taken  the  oddness  out  of  it  by  what  you've 
said.  I  suppose,  as  you  say,  the  glass  explains  it. 
So  long  as  a  pretty  woman  is  kept  conscious  of  her 
complexion,  I  presume  it's  her  natural  instinct  to 
look  after  it.' 

"  I  must  have  convinced  her  of  that  because,  in  a 


134  David  and  Jonathan 

sudden  impulse,  she  took  my  arm  with  a  com- 
panionable movement  and  turned  me  with  her  in 
the  direction  of  the  creek. 

'You're  an  understanding  old  thing,'  she  said 
cheerfully,  and  I  shied  at  the  thought  that  she 
could  call  me  that  when,  more  than  likely,  she  was 
thinking  how  completely  deceived  I  had  been. 
Perhaps  she  meant  it.  God  knows!  It  was,  I 
must  confess,  the  simple  pressure  of  her  hand  on 
my  arm  that  disturbed  me  most.  In  that  moment 
I  felt  the  pulse  of  my  heart  increase  its  measure. 
I  did  not  know  where  to  look — what  to  say.  With 
all  my  knowledge  that  the  whole  situation  was  a 
battle-ground  of  sex  and  that  she  knew  only  too 
well  the  weapons  she  must  use  for  victory ;  with  all 
my  knowledge,  too,  that  we  must  be  on  our  guard, 
I  yet  found  myself  on  the  verge  of  capitulating. 

' '  It  was  at  this  very  moment  she  stopped  as  we 
walked  and  turned  me  round  so  that  I  must  look 
into  her  face,  asking  me  if  there  was  too  much  red 
on  her  lips  or  cheeks. 

"  I  swear  to  Heaven  there  is  no  shame  in  my 
mind  when  I  confess  that  it  was  with  no  little  dif- 
ficulty I  restrained  myself  from  taking  her  in  my 
arms,  and  that,  without  waiting  to  know  one  way  or 
another  whether  she  would  have  wished  it  or  not. 


Sex  135 

"  'Well?'  she  inquired  after  a  moment  and  that 
one  word,  if  it  did  not  dispel  the  impulse,  at  least 
brought  it  within  my  control.  I  steadied  my  voice 
and  found  myself  listening  to  the  sound  of  it  as  I 
casually  replied  that  as  far  as  I  could  see  she  had 
not  overdone  it. 

"  '  I  sort  of  feel  you'd  know  if  I  had,'  she  said 
then.  '  You'd  understand  things  like  that.  Jona- 
than wouldn't.  Either  he'd  notice  nothing,  or 
he'd  be  horribly  shocked  at  a  woman — especially 
in  this  sort  of  place — thinking  it  necessary  to  make 
up  at  all.  But  you  realize,  I'm  sure  you  do,  how 
a  woman  must  miss  all  the  little  lotions  and  things 
she  has  at  home.' 

"  And  with  that  she  took  my  arm  again,  appar- 
ently never  realizing  how  in  every  word  she  said, 
she  was  disclosing  the  secret  of  her  purpose,  until 
I  was  forced  to  a  conclusion.  I  was  forced  to  the 
conclusion  that  women  do  not  understand  them- 
selves or  they  are  more  cunning  than  the  most  feline 
beast  that  prowls  with  silent  feet  in  search  of  its 
prey.  I  prefer  to  believe  and  do  believe  the  former. 

"They  do  not  understand  themselves  or  the 
motives  which  actuate  their  behaviour.  It  is  not 
deceit,  but  sheer  ignorance  when  they  deny  so 
vehemently  the  unvarnished  instincts  of  sex. 


136  David  and  Jonathan 

' '  Most  vehemently  would  Joan  have  denied  then 
the  instincts  which  had  prompted  her  use  of  the 
scarlet  juice  of  that  flower.  In  effect,  she  was 
denying  it  all  the  time  and  that  without  any  pro- 
vocation of  accusation.  And  I  cannot  believe  of 
her  that  she  was  cunning  or  deceitful  enough  to 
have  taken  such  a  course,  unprovoked,  if  the  pur- 
pose in  her  had  been  conscious,  to  blind  my  eyes. 
For  even  supposing  it  had,  would  she  then  have 
been  so  clumsy  in  the  methods  she  adopted — 
methods  that  would  scarcely  have  blinded  the 
eyes  of  a  child? 

"  Somehow  or  other  it  seems  to  me  to  be  this. 
Sex  is  subconscious  in  its  purposes  in  a  woman's 
mind.  She  is  not  immediately  aware  of  the  spur 
that  drives  her.  Yet  the  truth  which  is  ineradica- 
bly  in  all  of  us  pricks  her  conscience.  It  was  so 
with  Joan.  The  truth  had  pricked  her.  And  that 
modesty,  which  is  all  a  part  of  her  sex's  equipment, 
but  which  is  conscious  and  uppermost  in  a  woman's 
mind,  had  readily  answered  the  challenge. 

"It  needed  no  accusing  observation  of  mine  for 
her  to  offer  all  these  specious  excuses  about  the 
urging  protest  of  the  looking-glass.  In  a  word,  it 
was  not  me  she  was  deceiving,  but  herself.  To 
have  admitted  that  she  was  trying  to  snare  our 


Sex  137 

passions,  would  have  been  to  stand  ashamed, 
naked  in  the  light  of  the  truth.  She  must  de- 
fend, she  must  deceive  herself.  All  women  must, 
or  yield  that  claim  to  modesty  they  know  to  be 
the  spotless  garment  which  becomes  them  most 
of  all. 

"  I  am  not  pretending  to  say  this  is  the  way  with 
all  women.  Some  give  up  their  right  to  the  claim 
of  modesty.  Frankly  and  fearlessly  they  are  out 
to  capture  by  the  sheer  power  of  their  attractions. 
'Chastity,'  as  a  friend  of  mine  once  said  to  me — 
'Chastity  is  a  taste.  Some  people  like  it.'  To 
which  one  may  well  add:  'Thank  God  that  most 
women  do ! ' 

"  I  am  sure  that  she  loved  nothing  better  in  her- 
self than  that  pride  of  modesty,  so  hotly  accused  in 
those  moments  by  the  subconscious  instincts  of 
her  sex.  I  am  certain  that,  had  I  given  way  to  the 
impulse  her  sex  itself  had  stimulated  in  me,  and 
taken  her,  as  I  had  wished,  in  my  arms,  none 
would  have  been  fiercer  than  she  in  her  contempt 
of  my  folly. 

"But,  good  Heavens,  what  a  risk  she  ran  and 
how  little  did  she  realize  the  danger  she  faced, 
when  she  asked  me  to  look  at  her  lips  and  her 
cheeks  with  a  calculating  and  critical  eye.  Had 


138  David  and  Jonathan 

she  really  been  aware  that  in  her  lips  I  could  see 
nothing,  but  feel  only  the  burning  of  my  kisses  on 
them,  would  she  have  asked  me  to  look?  Most 
firmly  I  believe  she  would  not  have  dared.  Yet 
the  subconscious  instincts  of  her  sex  were  aware 
of  it  all  the  time.  In  those  days  at  the  creek,  they 
were  guiding,  leading  her  in  every  moment,  while 
with  a  sublime  conviction  in  the  depth  of  her  own 
modesty,  she  allowed  herself  to  be  deceived  at 
every  turn. 

"  So  I  have  supposed  and  do  believe  her  mental 
attitude  to  have  been.  If  I  had  not  discovered  her 
at  her  tricks  with  the  petals  of  that  scarlet  orchid, 
she  would  never  have  thought  to  defend  herself 
even  to  herself.  Now,  discovery  had  driven  her 
to  self-defence ;  yet  even  then,  it  was  for  her  own 
benefit  rather  than  mine.  My  presence  regarding 
her  in  that  act,  had  given  a  voice  to  her  sub- 
conscious instincts,  loud  enough  to  be  heard  in  her 
conscious  mind  and  up  in  arms  she  came — a  Joan 
of  Arc  let  me  call  her — fighting  for  the  troubled 
honour  of  her  sex. 

"In  civilized  life,  doubtless  these  actions  lose 
much  of  the  concentration  of  their  purpose.  As 
she  had  said,  with  her  little  lotions  and  things,  they 
become  almost  a  habit.  One  becomes  so  accus- 


Sex  139 

corned  to  the  different  fashions  of  dress,  the  use  of 
cosmetics  and  of  scent,  that  they  pass  almost  un- 
noticed and  are  the  more  easily  defended  were  one 
to  put  such  construction  upon  their  use. 

"  Yet  there  they  are,  with  the  same  underlying 
motive  and  it  is  for  that  reason,  perhaps,  I  have 
thought  it  interesting  to  put  all  this  story  down  up- 
on paper,  whereby  those  who  ever  see  it,  may  realize 
how  the  habits  and  customs  of  civilization,  while 
they  obscure  the  elemental  purpose  in  us,  have  by 
no  means  succeeded  in  altering  us  from  the  crea- 
tures of  instinct  that  we  are. 

"  Before  we  reached  the  edge  of  the  forest,  she 
took  her  hand  from  my  arm  and  there  she  stopped 
again. 

' ' '  Will  you  do  me  a  favour  ? '  she  asked. 

' '  I  inquired  what  it  was. 

4 ' '  Will  you  promise  to  say  nothing  to  Jonathan 
of  what  you  saw  this  morning.' 

"  I  knew  by  the  tone  of  her  voice  that  she  had 
said  this  after  long  and  uncomfortable  hesitation. 
I  realized  that  she  had  prepared  the  way  for  it 
in  her  comparison  between  Jonathan's  powers  of 
understanding  and  my  own.  I  appreciated  how 
finally  and  utterly  she  had  given  herself  away  by 
the  request  she  had  made.  Yet  none  of  these 


140  David  and  Jonathan 

thoughts  was  the  strongest  in  my  mind.  I  was 
caught  once  more  in  a  gust  of  passion  and  this  time 
it  was  the  wildest  and  the  maddest  jealousy. 

' '  She  cared  for  Jonathan  more  than  for  me.  She 
was  more  concerned  with  his  good  opinion  than  she 
was  with  mine.  I  could  think  more  or  less  what  I 
pleased.  I  knew ;  I  had  seen  her,  so  that  was  un- 
avoidable. But  if  she  could  still  appear  to  Jona- 
than as  she  had  done  hitherto,  then  I  was  to  be 
used  as  an  accomplice  to  this  end. 

"  Again  I  felt  that  surge  of  the  hot  spring  of  my 
blood  as  I  stood  there  looking  right  down  into  the 
deep  grey  of  her  eyes.  She  must  have  known  then, 
and  more  surely  than  she  did  at  her  birthday  feast, 
when  she  touched  Jonathan's  hand,  that  something 
was  all  wrong  somewhere. 

"  An  expression  of  fear  flickered  for  a  moment  in 
her  face  as  I  looked  at  her.  But  she  was  no  coward. 
It  soon  went. 

"  'Why  don't  you  answer? '  she  asked  presently, 
in  a  steady  tone  of  voice.  'What's  the  matter? ' 

'"You're  fond  of  Jonathan,  are  you?'  said  I. 
And  the  moment  I  had  said  it,  self-revealing  as 
I  had  known  her  question  to  have  been,  realized 
my  own  was  a  thousand  times  more  so. 

"  The  instant  she  threw  back  her  head  and  her 


Sex  141 

voice  rang  with  cheery  laughter,  I  knew  what  a 
fool  I  had  been. 

"'Fond  of  Jonathan!'  she  exclaimed.  'Just 
because  I  don't  want  him  to  hear  something  which 
I  know  he  won't  understand!  You  must  know 
less  about  women  than  I  thought,  if  you  imagine 
I'm  fond  of  a  man  because  I  have  a  little  pride  in 
myself  about  him.  You  know.  You  saw.  You 
caught  me.  I  shouldn't  have  let  you  see  if  I'd 
known.  I  certainly  shouldn't  have  volunteered  to 
tell  you.  I  suppose  men  think  a  woman,  in  a  situa- 
tion like  this,  is  bound  to  get  fond  of  one  or  the 
other  of  the  two  men  she  finds  herself  cast  adrift 
with.  My  goodness!  What  conceit !' 

"  She  laughed  again  and  looked  at  me  humor- 
ously as  I  stood  there  before  her,  feeling,  I  will 
admit  it,  a  most  consummate  fool. 

"  I  had  wilfully  given  her  that  opportunity  and 
for  a  woman,  alone  with  two  men  in  that  predica- 
ment, what  other  course  could  she  have  taken? 
All  her  instincts  were  there,  alive  and  alert  to 
protect  herself.  She  could  have  done  no  otherwise. 

' '  But  how  I  longed  to  tell  her  what  a  liar  she  was ; 
to  show  her  that  that  very  deed,  in  the  act  of  which 
I  had  caught  her,  was  the  proof  positive  that  she 
wanted  to  enslave  the  one  or  the  other  of  us,  and 


142  David  and  Jonathan 

that  with  the  request  she  had  just  made  what 
other  assumption  could  I  make  but  that  Jona- 
than was  the  one. 

"If  Jonathan  had  seen  as  much  as  I,  probably 
he  would  have  said  as  much  as  I  felt.  I  am  sure 
I  don't  know  whether  he  would  or  not.  I  am  only 
certain  that  it  was  impossible  for  me  to  say  it  then 
myself.  She  disarmed  me  with  her  laughter,  the 
very  turn  of  her  head,  the  merriment  in  her  voice. 
I  was  not  sure  of  her,  and  the  man  who  speaks  or 
acts  at  hazard  before  he  is  sure  is  thirty  times  a  fool. 

'"You  may  call  it  conceit  if  you  like,'  said  I, 
'it  has  at  least  the  recommendation  of  not  being 
self-conceit.  I  asked  you  if  you  were  fond  of 
another  man — not  of  me.' 

"  She  became  serious  at  once  and  for  a  moment 
confused.  It  was  a  parry  to  her  thrust  which  she 
had  not  expected.  In  the  tone  of  my  voice  as  well, 
she  realized  I  was  feeling  deeply  and  had  been 
hurt  by  what  she  had  said,  for  she  came  forward 
and,  with  a  simple  ingenuous  movement,  laid  her 
hand  on  my  shoulder. 

"  'I  didn't  mean  to  hurt  you,'  she  said  gently — a 
gentleness  which,  instead  of  calming  me  only 
made  my  heart  beat  the  faster.  'I  wasn't  really 
accusing  you  of  conceit.  Only  men  in  general. 


Sex  143 

That's  their  common  attitude  of  mind.  They 
think  they're  irresistible.' 

"I  shook  my  head. 

"  'You  make  a  big  mistake  about  us  when  you 
think  that,'  said  I.  'There  are  conceited  men 
and  vain  women.  Vanity  or  conceit  has  little  or 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  All  that  a  normal  man 
thinks  is  that  the  laws  are  irresistible,  not  himself. 
It's  the  common  attitude  of  women  to  deny  that. 
The  Suffragettes  most  vehemently  deny  it  in  their 
Suffrage  Papers  and  there  are  thousands  of  timid, 
well-brought-up  women  who  hug  themselves  in 
secret  because  some  of  their  sex  have  the  courage 
to  say  what  they  all  of  them  drive  themselves  to 
believe.  That's  all  it  is,  and  in  a  civilized  world, 
where  there  are  four  o'clock  tea-parties,  and  if  you 
want  to  see  a  certain  lady  in  whom  you  are  inter- 
ested, you  can  call  on  her  every  second  Thursday, 
when  she  will  be  at  home  with  her  mother  to  all 
the  family  acquaintances,  that  belief  is  all  right. 
It  holds  good.  It  is  the  only  sort  of  belief  you 
could  express  in  becoming  language  on  a  second 
Thursday  in  the  month.  But  it  isn't  the  sort  of 
language  in  a  place  like  this.  You  ask  me  not  to 
tell  Jonathan  that  you've  been  rougeing  your  lips 
and  putting  colour  in  your  cheeks.  Well — that's 


144  David  and  Jonathan 

not  the  sort  of  favour  you'd  ask  of  me  on  a  second 
Thursday  in  the  month.  On  the  second  Thursday 
in  the  month,  if  I  had  the  audacity  to  ask  you 
during  a  buzz  of  the  conversation  if  you  were  fond 
of  my  friend,  you'd  be  well  within  your  rights  if 
you  snubbed  me  straight  away.  That  might  be 
conceit  on  my  part,  if  not  for  myself,  then  for  the 
attractions  of  my  sex.  But  here — '  I  looked  up  at 
a  noise  in  the  upper  branches  of  the  forest  trees, 
where  there  were  two  monkeys  fighting  for  dear 
life  with  a  whole  crowd  of  others  gathered  round 
in  amiable  curiosity  to  watch  the  outcome.  '  Look 
at  that,'  said  I. 

"She  turned  and  looked,  then  turned  away. 

"'I  shall  never  like  monkeys, '  she  said. 

"  'No, '  said  I,  'they're  abominably  like  men.' ' 

Before  they  separated,  David  had  given  her  his 
promise  that  he  would  say  nothing  to  Jonathan  of 
the  incident  that  morning. 

"I  don't  quite  see,"  he  had  added,  "why  you 
should  expect  I  would  tell  him." 

"Doesn't  it  generally  amuse  men  to  talk  about 
that  kind  of  things?" 

"I'm  afraid  you'll  have  to  reconstruct  your 
ideas  about  men, ' '  he  replied.  ' '  Wouldn't  it  occur 


Sex  145 

to  you  that  I  might  like  to  keep  it  all  to  myself — 
a  possession  shall  we  say,  I  might  like  to  call  my 
very  own,  or  shared  at  best  between  us  two? 
Couldn't  you  admit  of  that  point  of  view  in  men?" 

"It  sounds  more  like  a  woman,"  said  she. 

He  laughed  at  that.  It  is  the  cruellest  thing  a 
woman  thinks  she  can  say  of  a  man. 

"Well — do  you  despise  that?"  he  asked. 

"I  don't  know.  There  isn't  a  trace  of  it  in 
Jonathan,  anyhow — is  there?" 

"Not  a  trace,"  said  he,  and  she  walked  away  to 
her  hut.  It  would  have  been  impossible  to  say  in 
that  moment  whether  she  hated  him  or  not. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

AN  INSIGHT 

T  MUST  now  refer  to  two  events  following  swiftly 
in  succession  one  after  the  other  in  a  few  days. 
In  detail  their  interest  is  mainly  in  that  quality  of 
adventure  from  which  standpoint,  for  those  whose 
taste  lies  in  its  direction,  this  story  might  solely 
be  regarded.  As  I  have  said  before,  it  is  not  from 
this  view  I  take  it.  It  was  not  David's,  though  he 
gives  a  wealth  of  detail  to  the  description  of  these 
two  events. 

I  shall,  however,  content  myself  with  a  brief 
statement  of  what  happened,  with  the  sole  inten- 
tion of  showing  how  a  new  aspect  was  brought  to 
those  three  living  their  life  in  that  solitary  creek. 

The  first  event  in  its  order  was  their  attempt  to 
launch  the  boat  and  put  out  to  sea,  either  to  get 
into  the  track  of  ships,  or  to  make  their  way  down 
close  to  the  shore,  until  they  came  to  some  signs 
of  coastal  habitation. 

146 


An  Insight  147 

There  is  one  incident,  however,  before  I  continue, 
which  I  must  record  from  David's  manuscript. 
At  first  I  thought  it  to  be  superfluous  but  on  second 
reading  have  decided  to  include  it,  because  I  think 
it  has  its  definite  value  in  the  light  of  events  that 
are  to  come. 

The  day  before  starting,  Joan  had  come  to 
Jonathan  with  her  tree-bear  in  her  arms.  The 
little  beggar  had  become  mightily  attached  to 
her.  It  followed  her  wherever  she  went — came 
obediently  to  her  call.  She  fed  it  and  fed  it  well. 
There  was  no  other  secret  to  it  than  this.  Women 
have  discovered  that  same  secret  about  men,  since 
the  days  in  the  Garden  of  Eden ;  for  I  take  it  that 
the  symbol  of  the  apple  was  drawn  from  the  Pa- 
triarch's simple  knowledge  of  the  world  as  he  saw 
it  then  and  as  it  may  well  be  considered  to  be  to 
this  day. 

"There  was,"  writes  David,  "a  suspicious 
glitter  in  her  eyes  as  she  came  up  to  where  Jona- 
than and  I  were  putting  the  finishing  touches  to 
the  Malaga's  boat.  I  could  see  at  once  the  tre- 
mendous problem  it  really  was  in  her  mind,  for 
what  a  woman  gives  in  affection,  seems  to  become 
a  part  of  herself.  I  could  see  by  the  expression  in 


148  David  and  Jonathan 

her  face  that  she  actually  did  not  know  how  the 
parting  was  to  be  made. 

"To  what  happened,  I  was  a  silent  witness. 
There  was  nothing  for  me  to  say.  It  was  tacitly 
agreed  by  all  of  us  that  Jonathan  should  have  the 
deciding  voice  in  any  question  arising  for  discus- 
sion. I  did  not  envy  him  his  authority  then. 

' '  She  held  the  little  beggar  in  her  two  hands  and, 
as  Jonathan  turned  round  at  her  approach,  she  said, 
'  What  am  I  to  do  with  Sam  when  we  go  to-morrow  ?' 

' '  Sam  looked  superlatively  indifferent  to  what  the 
answer  might  be.  He  rolled  his  eyes  over  the  two 
of  us  and  licked  his  chops,  where  there  still  were 
lingering  traces  of  honey,  with  a  tongue  the  colour 
of  a  chow's  and  as  rough  as  a  steel  file. 

"  'What  do  you  mean,  what  are  you  to  do?' 
replied  Jonathan.  There  was  only  one  aspect  of  it 
to  him.  For  a  moment  he  was  puzzled  by  the 
reason  for  her  question.  They  were  about  to  set 
out  on  a  quest  not  unf  raught  with  a  certain  amount 
of  danger  and  she,  already,  was  an  addition  to 
their  party  he  had  never  calculated  on.  Where, 
then,  lay  any  doubt  as  to  what  she  was  to  do  with  a 
little  beast  like  that,  which  would  only  have  to  be 
fed  from  their  provisions,  would  hamper  them  at 
every  turn,  probably  have  to  be  chucked  overboard 


An  Insight  149 

in  three  days  and,  above  all,  which  was  eminently 
capable  of  looking  after  itself  in  its  own  natural 
environment.  He  frowned  as  he  looked  at  her, 
puzzled  by  what  she  meant. 

' ' '  What  did  you  think  you  were  going  to  do  with 
him?'  he  added. 

"  She  screwed  her  lips  up,  rather  than  let  him  see 
the  moment's  quiver  in  them. 

"  'I  thought  I  might  be  able  to  take  him  home,' 
said  she. 

"  'Take  him  home!'  Jonathan  echoed.  'Hang 
it,  this  is  his  home — isn't  it?  D'you  imagine  he 
won't  fare  better  here,  than  with  you  looking 
after  him  in  an  open  boat  for  six  days  or  more? 
Good  heavens!  He  doesn't  want  your  help  to  get 
along  in  life.  He's  living  on  the  fat  of  the  land 
now  with  all  the  honey  you  give  him,  but  he'll  soon 
wish  he'd  never  been  born  when  he  finds  himself 
out  at  sea.  It's  amazing  you  should  consider  it  for 
a  moment.  We've  got  to  think  of  feeding  our- 
selves— not  a  menagerie.' 

' '  Every  word  he  said  was  pure  and  unadulterated 
common  sense.  It  was  a  preposterous  question  on 
her  part  from  every  point  of  view,  but  one;  from 
the  point  of  view  of  our  own  necessities,  a  con- 
sideration of  the  little  beast  itself,  but  not  from  the 


150  David  and  Jonathan 

point  of  view  of  her  own  emotions  about  it.  It 
was  just  this  very  point  of  view  which  Jonathan 
overlooked. 

"Yet  I  felt  certain  she  would  have  been  just  as 
amenable  to  reason,  had  he  been  able  to  take  that 
aspect  of  it  into  consideration. 

"  It  was  the  care  and  affection  she  had  given  it 
which  she  was  finding  difficult  to  leave  behind. 
Probably  it  needed  a  certain  amount  of  looking 
after  still,  and,  having  given  so  much,  she  was  to  be 
allowed  to  give  no  more.  And  she  wanted  to  give. 
Deprived  of  the  power  of  giving,  she  was  being 
robbed  of  the  power  of  self-expression.  Reason 
would  easily  have  overridden  all  those  emotions, 
had  it  been  applied  with  understanding.  The 
plain  reason  and  nothing  else  was  all  Jonathan 
had  to  give  her.  I  saw  the  quick  light  in  her  eye 
when  he  said:  'We've  got  to  think  of  feeding 
ourselves — not  a  menagerie. ' 

"  'I'll  be  entirely  responsible  for  it,'  she  declared 
quickly. 

' ' '  Oh — that's  all  stuff  and  nonsense ! '  he  replied, 
as  equably  as  he  could.  '  You'll  find  you've  got  more 
than  enough  to  do  to  look  after  yourself.  That 
little  beast'll  be  best  off  of  the  whole  lot  of  us.' 

"'It  can't  climb  a  tree  yet,'  she  retorted. 


An  Insight  151 

"  'No,'  said  he,  'but  it  will.  Nature'll  teach  it 
that  quicker  than  you  can.' 

' ' '  Yes — and  when  we've  gone,  one  of  those  leo- 
pards will  get  it.  I  saw  the  mark  of  one  of  their 
paws  in  the  sand  outside  the  palisade — only 
yesterday.' 

"  'Well — it'll  be  a  quick  death,'  replied  Jona- 
than. 'Quicker  than  ours  if  we  make  a  mess  of 
things  to-morrow.' 

"And  with  that  he  turned  away  to  his  work,  too 
impatient  with  the  whole  subject  to  waste  more 
words  upon  it.  She  went  back  to  the  hut  with  Sam 
in  her  arms.  It  was  so  abominably  obvious  he  was 
right,  that  she  too  could  say  no  more.  It  seemed 
to  me,  however,  by  the  curve  of  her  shoulders  as 
she  walked  away  that  she  was  sobbing  her  heart 
out,  though  so  long  as  she  had  been  facing  us  there 
was  never  a  tear  in  her  eyes. 

"That  evening  she  did  not  appear  at  our  supper- 
meal.  Half-way  through,  I  suggested  one  of  us 
should  call  her,  intending  that  one  to  be  myself. 

"  'Better  let  her  alone,'  said  Jonathan.  'It's 
no  good  trying  to  understand  women.  If  she  likes 
to  sulk ' 

"  'She's  not  going  to  sulk,'  said  I. 

' ' '  Well — whatever  she' s  doing,  let  her  have  it  out 


152  David  and  Jonathan 

with  herself.  We  can't  do  any  good.  That's  just 
the  sort  of  thing  which  makes  me  thank  God  I'm 
not  married.  Do  you  remember  that  night  on  the 
Malaga — what  I  said  ?  Women  have  got  the  means 
of  life — men  the  means  of  living.  She's  treating 
that  little  beast  as  if  it  were  a  baby  of  her  own  and 
then  she  comes  up  against  us  with  our  means  of 
living,  as  expressed  in  our  chance  of  getting  away, 
and  the  two  things  won't  stick  together.  In  this 
case  it's  the  woman  who  has  to  knuckle  under.' 

"  'And  that's  the  exception,'  said  I. 

"He  said  he  had  his  doubts  about  that  and  went 
on  with  his  meal.  As  soon  as  I  had  finished,  I 
went  out  to  see  what  had  become  of  her.  The 
door  of  her  hut  was  locked.  I  knocked  and 
knocked  again.  At  last  she  answered.  I  told  her 
who  it  was  and  a  moment  later  the  door  slowly 
opened.  She  appeared  in  front  of  me,  her  eyes 
red  with  weeping. 

'"What's  happened?'  I  asked.  'Why  didn't 
you  come  into  supper?' 

' '  There  must  have  been  a  tone  in  my  voice  touch- 
ing sympathy  with  her.  Anyhow,  for  answer,  she 
just  opened  the  door  a  little  wider  and  there  on  the 
floor  I  saw  the  body  of  Sam  lying  still  in  all  that 
looseness  of  death. 


An  Insight  153 

' ' '  What  have  you  done  ? '  I  asked. 

"  'Killed  him/  she  replied. 

"I  looked  at  her,  I  must  confess,  with  wonder. 

"'He  would  have  been  killed,'  she  said.  'He 
couldn't  have  escaped  from  those  leopards.  They 
would  have  mauled  and  tortured  him,  just  like 
cats  do.  I  know  what  brutes  they  are.  And  of 
course  Jonathan  was  right.  I  knew  all  the  time  I 
couldn't  take  him — so  I — so  I ' 

"She  broke  down,  when  it  seemed  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world  for  me  to  put  my  hands 
round  her  shoulders  and  let  her  cry  her  heart  out 
in  my  arms.  But,  my  heavens!  It  was  hard  to 
do  no  more. 

"Twice  she  had  been  in  my  arms  and  each  time  I 
had  been  powerless  to  do  more  than  hold  her  there. 
The  first  time — there  was  no  counting  that.  But 
now!  I  swore  then  it  should  come  about  once 
more  and  that  the  next  time,  whether  it  were 
opportune  or  not,  I  would  tell  her  what  she  meant 
to  me. 

"As  she  disengaged  herself  from  me,  I  looked 
back  with  a  sudden  instinct  to  the  other  hut,  and 
there  was  Jonathan  in  the  act  of  turning  back 
through  the  door.  He  had  seen  us,  and  he  had 
wished  to  see  no  more." 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  VENTURE  BY  SEA 

A  T  sunrise  the  next  morning  they  started  in  the 
'**  boat  for  the  beach.  With  constant  fishing 
expeditions  in  the  canoe  they  had  from  time  to 
time  made  a  fair  clearing.  On  that  day  the 
journey  took  them  only  three  hours. 

All  the  way  down,  they  discussed  their  chances 
of  success.  One  cannot  be  surprised  they  should 
think  and  talk  of  nothing  else.  From  what  I  read 
in  David's  manuscript,  he  was  frankly  optimistic; 
Joan  either  cared  little  or  too  much,  for  she  gave 
no  definite  expression  of  her  feelings.  Jonathan 
apparently  was  the  only  pessimist  of  the  party. 
This  certainly  was  not  because  it  was  his  nature, 
but  undoubtedly  because  he  knew  the  difficulties 
standing  in  their  way. 

They  had  brought  provisions  for  five  or  six  days ; 
water  for  more.  Once  launched,  of  course  they 
would  stand  a  good  chance.  The  Malaga's  boat 


The  Venture  by  Sea  155 

was  seaworthy  enough.  If  in  two  days  they  did 
not  get  in  sight  of  a  passing  ship — naturally  their 
greatest  hope — there  would  still  be  time,  if  there 
were  wind  at  all,  to  make  a  dash  down  the  coast. 

They  had  chosen  a  fine,  calm  day.  The  rollers 
of  surf  were  tumbling  in,  one  after  another,  gleam- 
ing white.  Half  a  mile  beyond,  the  sea  was  a 
polished  turquoise,  still  and  heavy  beneath  the 
burning  sun. 

Their  hearts  must  have  been  beating,  all  three  of 
them,  as,  when  once  the  arm  they  had  built  to 
take  the  surf  was  fitted  at  right  angles  to  the  boat, 
they  started  her  off  down  that  channel  towards  the 
foam  of  the  countless  waves. 

Joan  showed  no  trace  of  fear  at  the  prospect, 
though  there  was  risk  enough.  Once  in  the  midst 
of  his  labours,  David  snatched  a  glance  at  her. 
She  was  watching  Jonathan,  the  sheer  brute 
strength  of  him  and  the  mighty  muscles  of  his 
arms  as  he  fought  with  those  ceaseless  waves  to 
keep  the  boat  moving  with  her  head  out  to  sea. 

Not  more  than  ten  lines  of  waves  they  weathered, 
before  the  end  came.  The  arm  they  had  built  to 
support  her  on  one  side  and  give  purchase  for 
keeping  her  ahead,  snapped  beneath  a  wash  of 
water  like  a  slate  pencil.  In  a  second  she  was  gone 


156  David  and  Jonathan 

out  of  control,  turned  broadside  on  and  before 
they  knew  where  they  were  the  waves  were  over 
them  and  the  boat  had  capsized. 

"The  luck,"  says  David  here,  "came  Jona- 
than's way.  He  had  been  pitched  out  closer  to 
her  than  I  was,  and  by  the  time  I  had  recovered 
from  the  shock  of  it,  sufficient  to  know  what  I  was 
doing,  he  had  got  her  in  his  arms  and  was  keeping 
her  up  as  we  were  borne  in,  boat  and  all,  towards 
the  shore." 

When  Jonathan  helped  her  up  out  of  the  water 
on  to  the  beach,  she  was  breathless  but  none  the 
worse  for  her  ducking.  Before  she  could  speak,  she 
began  to  laugh;  for  which  reason  I  suppose  that 
David's  suggestion  that  she  was  indifferent  about 
their  chances,  was  more  or  less  right. 

In  that  moment,  as  he  heard  her,  Jonathan 
forgot  his  chagrin  at  their  failure,  and  just  wrung 
her  hand,  calling  her  a  brick. 

"She  looked  up  at  him  and  smiled,"  says  David, 
' '  and  I  could  see  she  liked  that  better  than  if  we 
had  been  picked  up  by  twenty  ships." 

And  the  result  of  all  this  was  Jonathan's  ex- 
pressed conviction  that  their  escape  did  not  lie 

in  the  direction  of  the  sea. 

\ 

"The  boat,"  he  said,  "is  too  heavy  for  that 


The  Venture  by  Sea  157 

auxiliary  arm — too  heavy  for  those  seas.  If  we 
made  a  thousand  arms,  she'd  break  every  damned 
one  of  'em.  I  knew  that  would  be  it.  Two  men 
could  never  launch  her  in  that.  Those  native 
boats  they  get  through  that  sort  of  surf  with  are 
light  as  feathers.  There's  not  an  ounce  of  weight 
in  'em.  And  if  we  made  one  of  those,  which  'ud 
take  some  months  with  the  tools  we  have,  it  might 
possibly  get  us  down  the  coast.  We  could  never 
risk  it  six  or  eight  days  out  to  sea.  We'd  better 
chuck  up  all  hope  of  this."  Having  said  that,  he 
stood  despondently  looking  out  to  the  dim  horizon 
where  the  smoke  of  a  passing  steamer,  hull-down, 
could  be  seen  on  the  ocean  highway. 

"Look  at  that!"  he  exclaimed  bitterly.  "Five 
hundred  souls  aboard,  all  going  to  England;  all 
with  their  work  to  do  in  the  world  and  probably 
grousing  because  she's  only  making  her  fourteen 
knots !  Blast  them ! ' '  and  he  turned  away. 

"I  glanced  at  Joan,"  David  writes,  "and  I'd 
almost  swear  I  saw  a  smile,  if  not  in  her  eyes  or  on 
her  lips,  then  somewhere  in  that  corner  of  her  heart 
where  a  woman  keeps  things  for  her  own  odd  con- 
ceptions of  amusement.  As  far  as  I  was  concerned, 
I  never  felt  more  sorry  for  a  man  in  all  my  life. ' ' 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  VENTURE  BY  LAND 

T  MUST  presume,  from  David's  silence  about  it, 
that  the  incident  of  the  tree-bear,  if  not  for- 
gotten, had  tacitly  been  put  aside. 

The  only  thing  that  occurred  of  any  importance 
to  the  story  was  in  the  interval  of  the  few  days 
between  their  adventure  by  sea  and  that  day  when 
they  set  off  into  the  heart  of  the  unknown  forest. 

Jonathan's  manner  to  David  had  changed  since 
their  failure  in  the  Malaga's  boat.  Partly  this 
may  have  been  accounted  for  by  the  depression 
which  came  over  him,  as  expressed  in  those  ex- 
clamations of  his  when  he  stood  on  the  beach  and 
saw  the  smoke  of  that  steamer,  hull-down  and 
homeward  bound,  with  never  the  ghost  of  a  chance 
of  their  attracting  her  attention.  In  a  consider- 
able degree,  no  doubt,  it  was  this.  He  was,  as 
they  say,  like  a  bear  with  a  sore  head.  But  it 
was  not  this  entirely. 

158 


The  Venture  by  Land  159 

On  the  evening  before  they  started  on  their 
second  and  more  adventurous  journey,  when  Joan 
had  retired  to  her  hut,  Jonathan  turned  suddenly 
on  David  as  though  he  could  keep  the  matter  to 
himself  no  longer. 

"Are  you  in  love  with  that  girl?"  he  asked. 

"Why?  "said  David. 

"Because  the  evening  before  we  started  that 
day  for  the  beach  and  made  such  a  howling  mess 
of  it,  I  saw  you  at  the  door  of  her  hut.  You'd — 
you'd  got  her  in  your  arms." 

Once  that  had  been  said,  neither  of  them  looked 
at  each  other  again.  They  spoke  in  strained  and 
disjointed  sentences,  Jonathan  taking  one  of  the 
wooden  bowls  she  had  made  and  scraping  the 
surface  of  it  to  a  better  polish ;  David  cutting  his 
nails  with  the  gold  nail-clipper  they  had  found,  and 
absorbing  himself  with  interest  over  the  process. 

"I  was  quite  aware  you'd  seen  us,"  he  said, 
after  a  moment's  pause. 

"Well?"  said  Jonathan. 

"I  can't  say  that  I  see  any  necessity  to  explain 
to  you  why — why — well — what  you  saw." 

"Was  there  any  necessity  other  than  what  I 
suggested?"  Jonathan  inquired. 

' '  Only  that  she  was  crying  her  eyes  out.    You'd 


160  David  and  Jonathan 

just  told  her  she  would  have  to  leave  Sam  behind. 
She  knew  the  leopards  'ud  get  him.  There's  no 
doubt  they  would,  as  soon  as  we'd  gone.  So  she'd 
killed  him." 

"Good  God!" 

"Yes — I  don't  suppose  you  thought  her  capable 
of  it." 

David  admits,  for  that  matter,  he  would  not 
have  believed  it  himself. 

"Anyhow,  that's  what  had  happened.  I  don't 
know  how  she  managed  it.  I  didn't  ask.  She 
must  have  had  the  pluck  of  her  emotions  about  the 
little  beast.  And  then  her  pluck  had  given  out. 
She  was  sobbing  like  a  child  in  there,  with  the  door 
locked,  and  Sam  lying  on  the  floor  at  her  feet.  It 
didn't  seem  unnatural  to  me  that  she  should  find 
herself  in  my  arms,  as  you  saw  us.  Have  you  any 
objections  that  she  did?" 

David  repeats  this  conversation  without  com- 
ment. But  in  it,  myself,  I  see  a  degree  of  mental 
superiority  to  which  Jonathan  could  never  have 
made  a  claim.  He  would  have  sworn  and  said  he 
did  love  her;  and  who  knows  that  might  have  been 
the  best  way  out  of  it  ?  But  with  David  there  was 
apparently  a  sense  of  romance,  forbidding  any 


The  Venture  by  Land  161 

such  discussion,  or  making  impossible  so  bare  a 
statement,  amounting  to  little  more  than  a  con- 
fession of  desire. 

"If,  as  I  supposed,"  he  says  in  another  part  of 
his  papers,  "for  it  seemed  to  me  by  that  time  any 
fool  might  have  known  it,  we  were  both  in  love 
with  her,  then  it  was  as  well  to  keep  it  to  ourselves 
until  the  little  matter  of  her  own  choice  had  been 
decided  on." 

So  at  least  matters  stood  between  them  when 
they  started  out  that  day  to  make  their  second 
adventure  towards  freedom  through  the  unbeaten 
tracks  of  the  forest.  As  far  as  I  can  gather,  the 
incident  of  Sam's  death  was  never  mentioned  be- 
tween any  of  them  again,  or  for  that  matter  can  I 
see  any  signs  in  David's  narrative  of  the  suggestion 
that  he  felt  any  further  excuse  for  intimacy  because 
Joan  had  come  to  him  that  moment  in  her  troubles. 

He  confines  himself  here,  as  I  have  intimated 
before,  to  the  minutest  detail  of  that  hazardous 
journey,  of  which  I  shall  content  myself  with  a 
mere  precis  of  what  he  has  written. 

Here,  travelling  through  the  forest,  the  matter 
of  provisioning  themselves  was  of  secondary  im- 
portance, which  should  not  imply  that  it  had  not 
to  be  carefully  considered.  They  could  be  fairly 


1 62  David  and  Jonathan 

certain  of  all  kinds  of  fruit,  but  the  chance  of  trap- 
ping birds  or  catching  fish  had  almost  entirely  to  be 
discounted.  In  the  depths  of  those  forests,  scarcely 
a  bird  was  to  be  seen,  and  so  many  parrots  as  there 
were  kept  only  in  the  highest  branches  of  the  trees. 

With  no  little  difficulty  the  boat  had  been  set  to 
rights  again  and  brought  back  to  the  creek,  and 
there  she  was  left,  moored  to  the  palisade.  They 
were  to  take  with  them  the  apology  for  a  canoe 
in  which  they  did  their  fishing.  It  was  an  odd- 
looking  craft,  but  with  the  tools  they  had  in  their 
workshop — a  portion  of  the  residential  part  of  the 
hut — its  construction  was  really  nothing  to  be 
ashamed  of.  Its  advantage  lay  in  its  lightness  and 
portability.  One  of  them,  with  difficulty  no  doubt, 
could  shift  it  in  and  out  of  the  water  and  lift  it  over 
obstacles  by  himself.  It  was  just  capable  of  taking 
the  three  of  them,  and  I  can  well  believe  there  was 
almost  an  art  in  keeping  it  trim. 

Preparatory  to  setting  out  this  time,  Jonathan 
suggested  a  farewell  meal  at  the  creek.  On  the 
first  occasion  he  had  said  nothing  about  farewells, 
as  though  he  had  known  the  quest  was  a  hopeless 
one.  This  time,  however,  his  spirits  were  high,  and 
it  was  evident  he  believed  they  stood  a  good  chance. 

An  hour  or  so  before  leaving,  Joan  took  them  to 


The  Venture  by  Land  163 

her  hut  and  showed  them  the  interior,  just  com- 
pleted, which  she  had  not  allowed  them  to  see 
before.  The  construction  had  been  strengthened 
considerably  directly  after  her  convalescence.  It 
was  no  longer  the  ramshackle  affair  they  had 
rigged  up  when  first  they  arrived  at  the  creek,  but 
had  a  substantial  roof  and  walls,  with  a  window 
facing  south.  For  this  she  had  made  a  patchwork 
sort  of  curtain  out  of  the  various  garments  at  their 
disposal,  stitching  the  pieces  together  with  a  coarse 
thread  David  had  discovered  could  be  made  from 
the  strands  of  vine  tendrils.  But  it  was  the  walls 
upon  which  she  had  spent  all  her  care  and  her  de- 
light in  colour.  They  were  covered  from  floor  to  ceil- 
ing— not  a  great  amount  of  space — with  the  feathers 
of  birds  which  had  been  trapped  from  time  to  time. 

"Such  a  glory  and  a  confusion  of  colour,"  writes 
David,  "certainly  I  have  seldom  seen.  For  not 
only  were  there  parrots  and  parroquets,  the  pre- 
dominating colours  of  which  were  yellow  and  green, 
but  there  were  the  most  amazing  blues  and  reds, 
the  richest  of  warm  browns.  Strange  as  it  may 
seem,  it  gave  an  air  of  comfort  I  can  scarcely  de- 
scribe, and  that  being  the  case,  no  one  could  have 
called  it  ugly.  Indeed,  as  a  mural  decoration  in 


164  David  and  Jonathan 

those  barbaric  surroundings,  it  would  have  had  a 
sense  of  gorgeousness  on  a  grander  scale. 

'  When  we  get  back  to  England,'  said  I,  'you'd 
better  sell  this  idea  to  a  Bond  Street  decorator.' 

"She  laughed  and  turned  to  Jonathan,  asking 
him  what  he  thought  of  it,  and  wasn't  it  a  shame 
to  be  leaving  it  just  when  it  was  finished? 

"  '  I  hope  you  cleaned  those  quills  well,'  said  he. 
'  It  '11  stink  like  anything  in  a  week  or  two  if  you 

haven't.'" 

i 

They  looked  all  round  the  room  before  they  went 
out,  at  the  comfortable  couch  she  had  made  of  her 
bed;  at  the  clothes-hanger,  with  the  frock  on  it 
which  she  had  never  worn  again  since  that  day. 
And  on  the  window-sill,  in  a  wooden  bowl  of  her 
own  making,  was  a  bunch  of  scarlet  orchids,  stand- 
ing in  water.  They  caught  David's  eye  when, 
turning  quickly,  he  found  her  looking  at  him. 

"What  was  there  to  do  then,"  says  he,  as  he 
tells  that  part  of  the  story,  "but  for  the  pair  of  us 
to  burst  out  laughing,  and  when  Jonathan  asked  us 
what  the  devil  we  were  laughing  at,  I  knew  she 
must  have  realized  then  the  delight  I  had  in  keep- 
ing the  secret  all  to  myself." 

So  they  started,  saying  farewell  to  their  creek, 


The  Venture  by  Land  165 

and  when  David  records  there  was  that  look  in 
Joan's  face  as  she  glanced  back  at  the  edge  of  the 
forest,  that  look  which  is  tender  more  than  senti- 
mental, and  has  no  relation  whatsoever  to  tears,  I 
fancy,  even  sitting  here  in  my  arm-chair  with  the 
trams  rumbling  along  the  Embankment,  I  can 
appreciate  what  she  must  have  felt. 

There  is  no  home  on  earth  like  the  home  you 
have  made  for  yourself  out  of  nothing.  Labour 
is  the  joy  of  living — but  I  am  telling  David's  story 
and  have  no  right  to  make  comments  on  my  own. 

The  course  of  the  river — emptying  itself  through 
the  creek  and  by  their  channel  into  the  sea — served 
them  apparently  for  two  days.  In  that  space  of 
time  Jonathan  calculated  they  had  covered  twelve 
to  fourteen  miles. 

"One  thinks  of  a  few  thousand  of  acres- of  forest 
here  at  home,"  David  writes  in  his  description  of 
their  surroundings,  "but  this  was  like  a  continent, 
a  world  of  mighty  trees  and  tangled  undergrowth — a 
never-ending  darkness  and  silence,  beside  which  the 
darkness  beneath  the  trees  of  an  English  forest  was 
a  lighted  chamber,  and  its  silence  almost  a  song." 

At  the  end  of  two  days  they  had  to  leave  the 
canoe  and  take  to  cutting  a  way  through  on  land. 
With  every  mile  Jonathan's  spirits,  however,  had 


166  David  and  Jonathan 

been  rising.  Hope  was  lifting  in  him  at  every  turn 
of  the  path. 

"If  we  can  find  the  food  all  right,"  he  said  over 
and  over  again,  "we  shall  get  through.  It  won't 
be  fifty  miles  before  we  get  out  of  it.  I  can  tell 
that  by  the  vegetation.  It's  changing  every  mile 
we  go.  Once  we  get  out  into  some  sort  of  open 
country  we're  free  as  birds." 

David  seems  unable  to  explain  the  effect  this 
hopefulness  of  Jonathan's  had  on  them.  They 
trusted  him  implicitly.  It  can  be  understood  well 
enough  how  they  felt  like  children  in  his  hands. 
The  passage  in  which  David  tries  to  give  account 
of  his  sensations  is  interesting.  I  am  going  to 
quote  it  word  for  word. 

"The  more  he  talked  like  this,  the  further  I 
began  to  feel  from  that  period  at  the  creek,  the 
more  I  began  to  sense  the  life  in  England  again, 
knowing  the  hopeless  mistakes  I  had  made  and 
the  follies  I  had  pursued,  blind  with  the  thought 
that  because  others  were  pursuing  them,  I,  there- 
fore, was  getting  the  best  out  of  life.  But  most  of 
all,  the  more  Jonathan  talked  like  this,  the  more  did 
my  hope  rise  at  the  thought  that  in  civilized  condi- 
tions once  more,  I  should  stand  a  better  chance 


The  Venture  by  Land  167 

with  Joan.  At  every  turn  he  had  the  pull  of  me. 
At  every  turn  I  felt  her  moving  towards  him,  the 
strong  man  of  our  little  company,  the  one  who  had 
knowledge,  experience,  ability,  courage  too,  and 
all  those  qualities  which  must  have  appealed  to  a 
woman  situated  as  she  was.  Yet,  notwithstanding 
all  these  advantages,  somehow  I  felt  in  the  egotism 
of  my  spirit  that  I  deserved  her  as  much  as  he  did. 

"  He  had  saved  her,  however,  that  day  in  the  sea, 
and,  even  taking  into  account  his  want  of  under- 
standing of  her  over  the  matter  of  Sam,  I  knew 
she  had  felt  the  steady  strength  of  his  arm  as  he 
had  helped  her  to  shore ;  that  she  had  thrilled  to  the 
note  in  his  voice  when  for  her  good  humour  at  it 
all,  he  had  called  her  a  brick. 

"What  I  knew  most  of  all  was  that  she  did  not 
understand  me,  and  in  that  environment  had  no 
need  or  desire  to  try  and  find  me  out.  The  man 
who  could  do  things  in  that  situation  in  life  was 
far  more  the  man  for  her.  I  knew  it  as  well  as 
I  knew  my  own  name;  therefore,  the  thought  that 
we  were  nearing  every  hour  to  the  approach  of 
civilization  once  more,  filled  me,  too,  with  a  terrific 
zest  of  hope.  What  she  felt  herself,  I  cannot  pre- 
tend to  say.  She  echoed  our  spirits,  that  is  all  I 
feel  justified  in  recording  of  her." 


i68  David  and  Jonathan 

Increasing  in  the  temper  of  this  mood,  they  went 
on  for  some  days,  till  they  came  to  a  belt  of  swamp 
land,  with  the  forest  continuing  beyond.  They 
were  living  now  on  what  they  could  find  to  eat,  and 
though  there  was  plenty  of  fruit,  it  seemed  im- 
possible to  secure  anything  more  substantial. 
This,  however,  did  not  damp  their  spirits.  Jona- 
than was  talking  almost  in  hours  now  of  their 
release.  It  proved  to  promise  longer  than  hours, 
for  without  their  canoe  there  was  no  way  through 
that  swamp.  For  two  days  they  travelled  up  and 
down,  trying  to  find  an  end  to  it,  but  apparently  it 
was  endless. 

And  then  the  catastrophe  they  never  had  dared 
to  speak  of  overcame  them.  Joan  fell  sick  with 
fever.  For  half  a  day  she  tried  to  struggle  on,  but 
was  too  weak  at  the  end  of  it  to  move  another  step. 

David  saw  Jonathan  go  away  by  himself  into 
the  forest,  and  realized  that  he  was  cursing  all  the 
words  he  knew  in  his  vocabulary.  But  obviously 
it  was  not  because  of  her  they  had  to  give  up. 
Fever  was  there  for  all  of  them  if  they  had  stayed 
another  twenty-four  hours  by  that  swamp.  They 
could  scent  it  in  the  air,  that  damp,  rotting  smell 
of  decaying  vegetation,  a  wall  of  death  between 
them  and  the  world  beyond. 


The  Venture  by  Land  169 

They  had  taken  the  precaution  of  carefully 
marking  the  way  they  had  come,  and  by  the  time 
Jonathan  had  returned  from  the  easing  of  his 
mood,  David  had  taken  her  up  in  his  arms  and 
was  starting  for  home,  those  many  days'  journey 
to  the  creek.  To  get  her  back  there  was  the  only 
hope  that  remained  of  saving  her  life  as  well  as 
safeguarding  their  own. 

He  had  not  gone  a  quarter  of  a  mile  before  he 
was  out  of  breath.  Here  Jonathan  stopped  him. 

"Give  her  to  me,"  he  said  sternly,  "I'll  carry 
her,"  and  through  the  track  made  easier  by  their 
passage,  he  carried  her  till  the  sweat  was  pouring 
from  his  forehead  in  heavy  drops. 

Whereas  they  had  taken  something  like  seven 
days  in  cutting  their  way  through  the  forest,  they 
must  have  taken  more  than  ten  in  that  same  more 
open  track  to  return  to  the  creek.  How  near  she 
went  to  death  in  that  time,  David  fully  describes. 
But  that  her  life  was  saved,  is  all  that  is  needed  for 
the  purpose  of  our  tale. 

In  another  fortnight  she  was  well  again ;  coming 
out  into  the  sunshine  and  sitting  near  them,  watch- 
ing them  as  they  set  to  the  making  of  a  mattress 
of  strong  vine  tendrils,  laced  and  interlaced,  for  the 
greater  comfort  of  her  bed. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE   SECOND  BOARD  MEETING 

OHE  had  grown  pale  again  and  for  some  time 
^  was  weak  as  well  with  the  sickness  of  her 
fever,  arising  out  of  which  David  makes  humorous 
reference  to  an  amusing  little  incident. 

"There  was  no  climbing  of  trees  for  her,"  he 
writes, ' '  in  that  delicate  condition  of  convalescence, 
so  one  morning,  coming  back  from  fetching  the 
water,  I  had  a  mind  of  her  needs  and  picked  her  a 
bunch  of  her  scarlet  orchids.  She  was  out  in  the 
creek,  talking  to  Jonathan  as  he  worked,  when  I 
returned.  They  had  not  seen  me  come  back,  so 
I  just  slipped  into  her  hut  and  put  them  on  the 
window-sill  in  a  bowl  of  water." 

"  She  was  making  her  appearance  at  meals  then, 
and  when  she  came  back  to  supper  there  was  just 
one  look  in  her  eyes  she  gave  me,  worth  much  for 
the  suppression  of  her  laughter,  and  still  more  for 
the  open  confession  of  gratitude. 

170 


The  Second  Board  Meeting  171 

"I  would  not,"  he  adds  on  a  human  note — "I 
would  not  have  given  up  that  little  secret  to 
Jonathan  for  anything  in  the  world." 

It  was  some  three  or  four  days  after  this  inci- 
dent, as  far  as  I  can  gather  from  David's  script, 
that  Jonathan,  making  use  of  Joan's  simile,  called 
a  board  meeting. 

He  had  been  intensely  serious  of  mood  ever 
since  their  return  to  the  creek;  had  spoken  little 
of  his  mind  to  David,  and  indeed,  had  not  been  the 
best  of  companions.  When  they  came,  however,  to 
his  appointment  in  the  living-room  of  the  large 
hut,  his  spirits  apparently  had  risen  somewhat. 
There  was  a  determined  attitude  of  cheerfulness 
in  the  way  he  spoke.  There  was  a  fixed  light  of 
good  humour  in  his  eye. 

I  feel  somehow,  as  I  re-read  these  last  few  chap- 
ters, that  I  have  done  scant  justice  to  the  indica- 
tion of  Jonathan's  character  throughout  this  period 
of  their  life  at  the  creek.  David,  in  his  script, 
speaks  far  more  of  him  than  he  does  of  himself. 
But  David  was,  after  all,  my  friend,  and  taking 
the  whole  matter  from  David's  account  of  it,  per- 
haps I  may  have  been  biassed  in  my  interest  of  the 
issue.  I  may  have  sought  out,  without  knowing 


172  David  and  Jonathan 

it,  every  opportunity  of  putting  him  in  the  light 
in  which  I  felt  he  deserved  to  be. 

I  will  just,  therefore,  take  one  passage  from 
David's  record,  in  which  he  gives  a  description  of 
Jonathan  after  their  return  from  the  failure  of  the 
forest  expedition. 

"His  whole  mind,"  he  says,  "was  wrapped  up 
in  the  energy  of  work,  of  doing  things,  if  only  with 
his  hands,  and  certainly  with  the  full  activities 
of  his  body.  'The  fun  of  doing  things,'  he  had 
once  said  to  me,  if  it  can  be  remembered,  'lies  in 
doing  them  for  yourself.'  That  was  characteris- 
tic of  him.  I  suppose  it  was  no  less  characteristic 
of  me  when  I  had  added:  'The  fun  of  doing  things 
lies  in  doing,  not  labouring  at  them.' 

"  To  this  he  would  never  have  agreed,  for,  good 
heavens,  I  never  saw  a  man  labour  so  hard  or  so 
vigorously  as  he  did  those  days  when  he  was 
making  the  small  canoe,  or  building  the  big  hut. 
Even  with  his  fishing  expeditions,  he  made  no 
amusement,  but  a  definite  business  of  them,  wast- 
ing no  time,  and  returning  to  the  creek  with  his 
catch,  as  if  there  were  a  train  due  to  take  them  by 
express  to  the  London  market. 

"  Under  his  influence,  as  I  think  I  have  said  some- 


The  Second  Board  Meeting          173 

where  else,  I  had  never  worked  so  hard  in  my  life 
before,  or  do  I  wish  to  deny  it,  had  ever  enjoyed 
anything  so  much.  I  shall  never  look  back  upon 
those  days  but  with  the  clearest  sense  of  happiness. 

'  'But  it  was  not  happy  for  him.  Hard  labour,  the 
risk  and  adventure  of  life,  the  work  of  the  pioneer, 
these  were  the  only  ways  in  which  he  could  express 
himself.  There,  however,  in  that  creek,  behind  the 
palisade  he  had  himself  erected,  he  was  like  a 
caged  lion,  padding  it  with  his  spirit  up  and  down, 
up  and  down,  up  and  down. 

"Again  and  again  I  felt  intensely  sorry  for  him, 
for,  as  it  can  easily  be  understood,  I  came  to  know 
him  then  better  than  I  had  ever  known  him  before. 
The  stress  of  circumstance  does  not  change  a  man, 
it  only  brings  out  a  clearer  expression  of  the  truth 
that  is  in  him.  Jonathan  was  clearer  to  me  then 
than  ever  he  had  been  before.  So  I  came  the  more 
to  feel  sorry  for  him,  because  there  was  no  re- 
source in  his  mind  to  which  he  could  turn.  He 
worked  until  he  was  physically  exhausted,  and  then 
he  went  to  sleep.  I  do  not  mean  to  suggest  by  this 
that  there  were  no  ideas  in  his  mind.  The  ideas 
he  had  suggested  about  the  symbols  of  life,  that 
day  when  I  was  packing  up  in  the  Albany,  are 
sufficient  to  disprove  that.  Those  ideas  were  full 


174  David  and  Jonathan 

of  truth.  But,  if  I  make  myself  clear,  they  were 
the  immediate  expression  in  speech  of  his  physical 
energies.  In  his  way,  he  was  well-educated. 
Silence  cannot  be  the  invariable  habit  of  a  man. 
All  I  want  to  convey  is  the  impression  that  thought, 
for  itself,  was  not  the  natural  expression  of  his 
spirit.  He  was  only  happy  when  he  was  doing 
something  capable  of  definite  and  ultimate  results 
which  he  himself  could  appreciate.  I  can  quite 
believe  he  was  excellent  at  his  job.  I  have  no 
hesitation  also  in  thinking  that,  compared  with 
my  own  mode  of  living,  his  life  was  worth  a  thou- 
sand of  mine.  It  seems  almost  foolish  to  write 
that,  so  obvious  must  it  seem." 

Having  quoted  this,  I  feel  I  can  return  to  the 
account  of  that  board  meeting — with  more  convic- 
tion that  I  have  done  justice  to  those  who  took  part 
at  it ;  for  without  such  justice  being  given,  it  would 
have  been  impossible  to  appreciate  the  full  signific- 
ance it  possessed  in  the  development  of  our  tale. 

Jonathan,  as  I  have  already  indicated,  was  in  a 
more  cheerful  mood,  however  forced  it  may  have 
been.  He  laughed  as  he  alluded  to  it  as  their 
board  meeting.  He  complained  that  there  was 
no  shorthand  clerk  to  take  notes  of  the  minutes. 


The  Second  Board  Meeting          175 

He  took  the  chair  at  the  head  of  the  table,  saying: 
"Gentlemen — lean  only  speak  what  I  see" — this 
was  his  reference  to  Joan's  garments — "I  have 
the  honour  to  call  you  to  this  special  meeting  of 
the  company  to  discuss  certain  matters  connected 
with  the  handsome  dividends  I  think  you  will  all 
agree 

"Oh — shut  up!"  said  David,  laughing — and 
then  a  very  different  expression  settled  on  Jona- 
than's face.  He  began  to  speak  seriously  and  in 
deep  earnestness. 

"All  right— that's  all  rot,"  said  he.  "It's  no 
good  playing  about  with  it.  I  don't  know  whether 
you  two  have  realized  what  these  two  failures  of 
ours  have  meant.  Vaguely,  I  suppose  you  have. 
Vaguely,  you've  said  to  yourselves — well — sooner 
or  later  we  shall  have  to  have  another  shot,  and  in 
the  meantime  there's  this  place,  free  of  fever,  to  live 
in.  That's  what  I  imagine  you've  thought.  I've 
tried  to  think  it  myself,  ever  since  we  came  back 
out  of  the  forest.  But  it's  no  good.  I  know  a 
damn  sight  better  than  that — I'm  not  going  to 
apologize  for  language. 

"  I  know  what  we're  up  against,  and  I've  called 
this  blessed  board  meeting  to  tell  you  what  it  is. 
We've  tried  the  only  two  means  of  escape  I  know 


176  David  and  Jonathan 

of,  and  now  it's  up  to  a  remote  chance  that  we 
aren't  here  for  the  rest  of  our  natural  lives." 

He  stopped  for  a  moment  and  looked  at  them; 
first  at  David,  lastly  at  Joan.  And  his  last  was 
no  mere  glance.  It  was  a  long,  long  look  that 
would  have  become  embarrassing  only  that  he 
presently  went  on. 

"I  want  to  say  straight  out,  and  first  of  all, that 
I  don't  think  it's  anybody's  fault.  It  just  hap- 
pened that  Joan  was  the  first  to  knock  under  to  the 
fever.  We  ought  really  to  be  grateful  to  her.  She 
acted  as  a  warning.  If  we  hadn't  turned  back 
then,  I  haven't  the  slightest  doubt  we  should  both 
have  been  down  with  it  ourselves,  and  then  there'd 
have  been  hell  to  pay.  I'm  not  chucking  com- 
pliments about,  but  I  should  never  have  thought  a 
woman  could  be  so  plucky  as  she's  been." 

"Hear,  hear!"  said  David. 

"Or  that  you,  David,"  he  continued,  "could 
have  worked  like  you've  done.  I  never  thought 
you  had  it  in  you." 

David  says  he  felt  like  a  schoolboy  taking  a 
prize  from  the  Lord  Mayor  and  not  knowing  what 
the  devil  to  say. 

"That's  enough  of  that,  anyhow,"  Jonathan 
went  on.  "Those  are  the  facts.  Unless  a  ship 


The  Second  Board  Meeting          177 

outside  sees  our  signals — and  you  can  guess  how 
likely  that  is — I  see  small  chance,  if  any,  of  our 
getting  away.  That  chance  might  come  to- 
morrow, it  might  come  when  we're  doddering  old 
creatures  and  some  enterprising  company  is  open- 
ing up  the  coast  of  Liberia  for  trading  purposes. 
Pray  God  I'm  under  this  sand  before  then. 

"Well,  that's  what  I've  called  you  in  here  for, 
because  I  think  it's  only  fair  you  should  face  it  and 
set  your  minds  out  to  what  it  really  means.  It 
means  that  we've  got  no  other — what  David  would 
call — expression  for  our  lives  outside  this  hundred 
square  yards  or  so  of  creek;  that  here  we  are  to 
make  of  ourselves  the  best  we  can,  and  get  the  best 
we  can  out  of  it.  Personally,  I  must  admit  my 
ambitions  are  not  hugely  stimulated.  That's  not 
to  be  wondered  at.  Once  this  place  is  as  comfort- 
ably habitable  as  we  can  make  it,  there's  not  much 
left  for  me  to  do,  and  it  is  with  me  that  I  must  be 
doing  something.  Now,  if  either  of  you  have  got 
anything  to  say,  let's  have  it  all  out  while  we're 
here,  and  then  take  the  gifts  the  Gods  have  given 
us  without  saying  anything  more  about  it.  Cer- 
tainly I  don't  feel  inclined  to  thank  'em  for  what 
they've  given  me." 

I  have  given  this  speech  of  Jonathan's  word  for 


i;S  David  and  Jonathan 

word  as  David  recorded  it,  because  I  think,  under 
the  circumstances,  knowing  what  the  man  who 
made  it  was  suffering,  and  the  despair  he  felt,  it  is  a 
fine,  manly  effort  with  no  nonsense  about  it  one  way 
or  another.  And  now  I  return  to  David's  account. 

"Having  asked  us  to  say  something,"  David 
writes,  "I  looked  at  Joan,  giving  her  preference; 
she  looked  at  me,  waiting  as  well.  The  fact  of  the 
matter  was,  we  neither  of  us  wanted  to  speak  at  all. 
I  knew  what  I  might  have  had  to  say  couldn't 
be  said  there.  Somehow  or  other,  I  felt  it  was 
exactly  the  same  with  her,  only  that  being  one 
woman,  and  alone  with  us  two,  hers  could  not  have 
been  said  anywhere. 

"  I  ventured  to  remark  that  there  did  not  seem 
to  be  anything  further  to  add.  Joan  rose  from  her 
chair,  saying:  'I've  got  nothing  to  say.  You 
know  more  about  it  than  we  do,  Jonathan.  I'm 
sure  I'm  quite  ready  to  place  myself  in  your  hands 
with  anything  you  choose  to  do.  You  know  best. 
And  that's  all  there  is  to  be  said — isn't  it  ? ' 

"So  that  was  the  breaking-up  of  the  board 
meeting.  She  went  back  to  her  hut.  It  was  in  the 
full  heat  of  the  day,  when  it  was  more  or  less 
impossible  to  work.  I  just  got  out  the  canoe  and 


The  Second  Board  Meeting  179 

said  I  was  going  down  to  the  beach  to  catch  some 
fish.  It  was  fairly  cool  down  that  channel  through 
the  forest.  There  were  only  patches  where  the  sun 
penetrated.  What  is  more,  I  wanted  to  be  alone. 

' '  It  was  quite  true  what  Jonathan  had  said — true 
for  me,  anyhow.  I  had  only  vaguely  thought  what 
those  two  failures  meant.  Now  I  was  face  to  face 
with  the  facts,  or  rather  the  fact,  for  there  was 
only  one  to  me.  If  the  rest  of  our  life  was  to  be  in 
that  creek,  then  there  was  no  concealing  my  love, 
or  my  passion,  for  that  girl  with  the  subterfuges 
which  civilization  offers  in  handfuls  to  those  who 
need  to  be  quit  of  an  awkward  predicament  where 
a  woman  is  concerned. 

"  She,  as  Jonathan  had  quoted  me,  would  have 
been  a  great  purpose  in  the  expression  of  my  life 
under  any  circumstances.  In  that  creek,  she 
became  the  sole  purpose.  That  was  all  I  could 
have  said  at  our  board  meeting.  No  wonder  I 
refused  to  speak. 

"  To  the  casual  reader,  that  may  sound  simple 
enough,  but  far  from  being  simple,  I  saw  in  it  the 
looming  dangers  of  as  pretty  a  tragedy  as  our 
fretted  novelists,  out  for  sensation,  could  possibly 
hope  to  find. 

"  For  in  that  little  limited  community  there  was 


i8o  David  and  Jonathan 

no  possibility  of  one  thinking  for  himself  without 
inevitably  concerning  the  others.  I  might  want 
her  with  all  my  heart ;  she  might  be  wholly  neces- 
sary to  the  one  single  purpose  of  my  life,  but  that 
might  not  be  to  her  desire;  and,  for  the  one  re- 
maining purpose  of  his  life,  this  might  tragically 
fail  to  coincide  with  Jonathan's  view  of  it  all. 

"  I  felt  sure  of  one  thing.  No — it  is  more  exact 
to  say  I  felt  sure  of  two.  I  felt  sure  that  as  yet 
Jonathan  had  not  realized  it  as  deeply  as  this,  or 
he  could  not  have  spoken  as  candidly  as  he  did  to 
us.  It  was  the  loss  of  the  ambition  of  his  work 
he  was  so  far  despairing  of;  the  thing  most  im- 
mediate in  his  mind  that  he  had  lost.  But  that 
there  was  at  the  back  of  his  mind  a  great  admira- 
tion for  her — as  evidenced  if  only  in  the  compli- 
ment he  had  paid  her — and  that  inevitably  this 
would  ripen  with  the  circumstances  into  a  strong 
passion  with  him,  I  knew  as  well  as  I  knew  the 
common  and  natural  instincts  of  any  man. 

"  The  second  thing  of  which  I  felt  sure,  was  that 
Joan  had  not  spoken  because  she,  too,  had  sensed 
all  the  difficulties,  and  possibly  the  dangers  as 
well,  which  lay  ahead.  With  her  I  am  more  in- 
clined to  think  it  was  only  the  difficulties. 

"  She  liked  both  of  us,  but  in  my  heart  I  felt 


The  Second  Board  Meeting          181 

that  she  liked  Jonathan  best.  His  appeal,  es- 
pecially in  a  place  like  that,  I  felt  sure  must  be 
greater  than  my  own.  And  there  were  other 
difficulties  besides  that  of  choice.  There  were  the 
difficulties  which  she  only,  as  a  woman,  could 
appreciate.  That  she  had  the  mother-instinct 
strong  in  her,  I  knew  well  enough  by  her  emotions 
over  Sam.  That  she  had  the  mother-courage 
there  was  plenty  of  proof  in  the  way  she  had 
killed  the  wretched  little  beggar  before  we  left 
the  creek  for  the  first  time. 

"  A  woman  who  had  the  courage  to  kill  a  living 
thing  with  her  own  hands  rather  than  leave  it  to 
its  fate,  had  certainly  the  courage  to  bring  a  live 
thing  into  the  world  for  her  nursing.  Besides 
which,  if  the  mother-instinct  were  there,  was  not 
that  the  highest  purpose  of  the  expression  of  her 
spirit?  I  may  be  foolish  on  that  subject,  but  I 
cannot  conceive  a  woman  wishing  to  express 
herself  more  completely  than  by  that. 

"Here,  anyhow,  was  the  problem  as  I  saw  it, 
while  I  fished  idly  from  the  canoe  that  afternoon, 
and  the  more  I  considered  it,  the  less  dispassionate 
I  became ;  the  more  I  realized  that  I  could  not  live 
there  without  her ;  that  I  could  not  live  there  for  one 
moment  if  Jonathan  possessed  her  and  not  I." 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE   BEGINNING  OF   REALIZATION 

QO  the  situation  had  been  shaped  and  moulded 
^  in  the  hand  of  circumstance  after  some 
months  of  their  life  at  the  creek. 

Every  day  after  that  board  meeting,  Jonathan 
went  alone  down  to  the  beach,  ostensibly  to  fish 
in  the  channel,  but  really,  as  Joan  and  David  well 
knew,  to  look  out  at  those  passing  steamers,  which 
regularly  every  week  went  by,  dim  spirits  of  his 
discontent,  half -hidden  behind  the  far  line  of  that 
horizon. 

On  these  occasions  David  and  Joan  saw  much 
of  each  other,  and  if  it  should  be  wondered  why  he 
did  not  seize  one  of  the  many  opportunities  he 
must  have  had  to  tell  her  what  was  in  his  mind 
about  her,  let  me  give  his  own  explanation. 

"We  were  sitting  out  one  morning,"  he  says, 
"on  a  flat  projection  of  rock  in  the  face  of  the 

182 


The  Beginning  of  Realization        183 

cliff,  where  an  overhanging  tree  gave  its  welcome 
shade.  So  delightful  a  shelter  from  the  sun  was 
it,  that  from  time  to  time  in  those  few  months 
we  had  cut  out  a  small  stairway  of  steps  in  the 
rock,  making  it  the  more  accessible. 

"Jonathan  was  away  at  the  beach.  We  were 
completely  alone;  sitting  there  looking  down  over 
the  palisade,  across  the  creek  into  the  forest  below. 
A  tremendous  specimen  of  a  crocodile  was  moving 
about  sluggishly  in  the  water  beyond  the  palisade. 
I  knew  she  was  watching  him.  I  was  watching 
him  myself.  The  same  train  of  thought  must 
have  been  in  both  our  minds  at  the  same  time,  for 
presently  she  said : 

"'I  wonder  do  these  animals  in  the  forest  ever 
feel  the  sense  of  their  own  utter  desolation? ' 

'"Do  you? 'said  I. 

"  She  seemed  to  wake  from  her  contemplation  of 
that  old  beast  with  a  start,  as  though  I  had  stirred 
her  out  of  sleep  from  an  unpleasant  dream  into  the 
consciousness  of  a  still  more  unpleasant  reality. 

"'I  suppose  I  do  sometimes,'  she  replied,  and 
there  was  almost  a  tragic  note  in  her  voice.  '  Splen- 
did and  cheerful  as  you  both  are — you — you 
couldn't  expect  me  to  feel  otherwise.' 

' ' '  What  do  you  miss  most  of  all  ? '    I  asked,  and 


184  David  and  Jonathan 

I  knew  when  I  had  said  this,  that  before  our 
conversation  that  morning  was  over,  the  chances 
were  I  should  have  put  all  my  hopes  to  the  test 
and  told  her  that  I  loved  her.  I  did  not  know  all 
the  chances  when  I  thought  that. 

"  'What  do  you  miss  most?'  I  repeated — fully 
determined  now  to  see  it  out. 

"  She  stared  for  a  long  while  down  into  the  forest 
before  she  answered,  and  then  she  said:  'I  miss 
the  purpose  of  it  all.' 

'"Of  our  being  cast  adrift  here?' 

'"Yes — and — and  of  the  whole  of  life.  One 
would  have  imagined  that  in  a  place  like  this 
everything  would  have  been  absurdly  simple — 
well,  foolishly  enough  perhaps,  it  seems  to  me 
absurdly  the  reverse.  I  can't  see  the  meaning;  I 
can't  see  the  end  of  it  all.  Are  we  just  going  to — 
to  die  here  and  bury  each  other  in  the  sand  of  that 
creek' — one  after  the  other,  till  the  last  one's  left 
alone  to  just  lie  down  when  his  turn  comes  and 
let  the  leopards  eat  him,  or  the  sand  blow  over 
him?  Can  you  understand  what  I  mean?  I'm  all 
confused.  It's  like  a  riddle,  or  a  maze,  with  no 
way  out — a  senseless  business,  where  you  chafe 
and  chafe  against  the  conditions,  but  can  do 
nothing  to  alter  them.' 


The  Beginning  of  Realization        185 

"She  was  herself  talking  in  riddles,  but  simpler 
ones  than  those  she  had  propounded  herself. 
Who  really  could  have  failed  to  understand  ?  Her 
missing  of  the  purpose  of  life;  her  confusion  of 
thought  about  what  the  end  of  it  all  was  going  to  be 
— these  sentences  were  only  a  combination  of  words 
concealing  the  very  things  I  had  thought  of  myself 
that  day  in  the  canoe  after  our  board  meeting. 

"She  was  thinking  just  as  I  was.  Was  she  to 
miss  the  purpose  of  hers  or  every  woman's  life? 
And  if  not,  then  in  which  of  us  two  did  her  fate 
lie?  There  was  her  confusion  of  thought.  And 
how,  indeed,  was  it  all  going  to  end  ? 

"'May  I  say  something,'  said  I  presently, 
'without  incurring  anything  in  the  way  of  criti- 
cal scorn  from  you? ' 

' '  For  a  moment  she  looked  afraid.  What  woman 
would  not  have  looked  the  same?  I  might  hava 
been  going  to  say  something  which  would  drive  her 
to  some  definite  action.  For,  strangely  enough,  the 
more  simple  our  environment  had  become,  the 
more  necessity  did  there  appear  to  be  for  secretive 
measures.  I  know  it  was  as  obvious  to  her  as  it 
was  to  me  that  we  feared  to  tell  each  other  the 
truth.  Her  fear  was  natural  enough.  It  was  that 
I  was  going  to  break  through  that  safeguarding 


i86  David  and  Jonathan 

palisade  of  secrecy  with  which  we  had  fenced  our- 
selves in,  and  that  then  at  once — inevitable  as  it 
must  be  in  the  end — we  would  be  fighting  for  our 
lives. 

'  'I  won't  say  it  if  you  don't  want  me  to,'  said  I. 

"Jonathan  would  have  said  it  without  asking,' 
she  remarked,  showing  me  unintentionally  the 
invariable  comparison  she  was  always  making 
between  us. 

' '  Jonathan  and  I  are  two  different  types,'  said  I. 

'  'I  know  that,'  said  she. 

"  'Well — am  I  to  say  it,  or  not?' 

"'Say  it,'  she  replied. 

"I'm  going  to  say  what  I  said  once  before — 
the  laws,  not  us,  are  irresistible.  Over  in  England 
they  are  written  on  parchment  and  are  at  your 
service  if  you  are  ready  to  pay  a  lawyer's  fees  and 
the  costs  of  litigation.  Here  you're  the  slave  of 
the  law — we're  all  the  same — all  of  us.  Force 
dictates — sheer  brute  force,  in  the  end.  Does 
that  make  it  any  simpler?' 

' '  She  looked  straight  into  my  eyes  after  a  few 
moments,  and  she  replied,  quite  steadily:  'No — 
it  only  makes  it  worse.' 

"  'Worse,  perhaps,'  said  I,  'but  not  less  simple. 
You  had  to  kill  Sam.  That  was  force — brute 


The  Beginning  of  Realization        187 

force,  however  gentle  in  the  heart  of  it  the  motive 
may  have  been.  Jonathan's  was  the  force  that 
compelled  you  to  use  your  own.  A  common 
law  of  self -protection,  stronger  than  him,  drove 
Jonathan.' 

"'I've  never  hated  him  for  it,'  she  replied, 
quickly.  '  I  know  he  had  to  do  it, '  and  it  was  this 
answer  which,  rightly  or  wrongly,  in  that  moment 
seemed  to  me  to  be  the  answer  to  it  all.  My  hopes 
of  winning  her  then,  all  my  intentions  of  saying 
what  was  in  my  mind,  dropped  from  me  on  the 
instant.  I  could  do  no  more  than  sit  there  with 
my  chin  on  my  knees,  staring  down  into  the  forest, 
hearing  all  the  time  those  words  revolving  in 
my  head:  'I've  never  hated  him  for  it.  I  know 
he  had  to  do  it.' 

"She  must,  I  suppose  intuitively,  have  known  a 
greater  part  of  that  which  was  in  my  mind,  because 
after  a  moment  she  suddenly  put  out  her  hand. 
It  was  a  frank  and  generous  movement.  There  was 
no  mistaking  its  impulse,  and  I  took  it  in  my  own. 

"'We're  all  the  best  of  friends — aren't  we?' 
said  she  openly.  '  I  know  you  two  are — and — ' 
then  she  laughed — 'I  promise  you  I'm  not  going 
to  be  left  out  in  the  cold.  Good  heavens!  What 
else  could  we  be  in  a  place  like  this? ' 


i88  David  and  Jonathan 

"And  that  was  the  sum  of  all  we  said  that  morn- 
ing, having  spoken  in  nothing  but  riddles,  yet  I 
believe  no  two  people  had  ever  made  their  mean- 
ings more  clear  to  one  another  than  we.  I  had 
told  her  of  the  irresistible  and  inevitable  fact  that 
we  were  both  in  love  with  her.  For  if  Jonathan 
was  not  aware  of  it,  I  knew  from  a  thousand  little 
incidents,  besides  those  I  have  already  mentioned, 
that  he  soon  would  be. 

"And  what  had  her  reply  amounted  to?  That 
she  feared  the  issue  when  I  spoke  of  brute  force 
being  the  determining  factor.  This  was  natural 
enough.  She  saw  us  two  at  each  other's  throats, 
and  rather  than  that,  she  would  have  us  all  be 
friends.  She  was  indeed,  so  far  as  her  nature 
was  concerned,  at  that  same  stage  through  which 
we  had  passed  soon  after  her  arrival  at  the  creek, 
when  Jonathan  and  I  had  discussed  the  folly  of 
letting  her  interfere  with  our  plans  of  escape. 
Then  the  inevitable  sex  instinct  in  her,  finding 
we  had  determined  to  put  her  in  her  place — even 
to  the  point  of  insinuating  how  she  was  to  dress 
— had  determined  it  should  not  be  ignored.  But 
now,  holding  no  counsel  as  we  had  done,  except 
with  her  own  heart,  she  was  all  for  dictating  to  us 
the  amicable  attitude  of  friendship. 


The  Beginning  of  Realization        189 

"  I  wonder  how  many  women  have  not  passed 
through  those  very  phases  with  a  man,  trying  the 
volte-face,  and  spurred  by  fear  when  it  was  too  late? 

"  Somehow  or  other,  judging  at  least  by  myself, 
I  knew  it  to  be  too  late  now.  Friendship  would  not 
content  me.  I  had  been  in  love  before  and  had 
no  mistaking  of  my  emotions  now.  Besides  all  of 
which,  there  was  what  she  called  the  meaning  of 
life,  and  in  her  it  was  as  clear  as  daylight  to  me. 
The  world  had  started  somewhere;  if  not  in  the 
Garden  of  Eden,  then  in  the  waste  places  into 
which  first  man  and  first  woman  were  driven  by 
the  angels  of  the  Lord. 

"And  whatever  had  driven  us  there,  on  to  that 
lonely  coast,  I  thought  no  more  of  consequences 
than  did  they.  This  was  my  life,  and  I  knew 
that  Jonathan  in  time  would  come  as  well  to 
realize  it  his.  And  here  was  a  woman  who,  apart 
from  all  these  exigencies  of  Fate,  I  loved,  no  less 
then  than  when  we  were  living  in  the  hope  of 
escape. 

"  If  any  man  can  declare  he  would  have  con- 
ceived differently  from  me  that  ultimate  issue, 
I  should  only  feel  assured  that  his  imagination 
was  unable  to  carry  him  into  the  real  conditions 
of  that  situation,  or  that  civilization,  as  with  so 


190  David  and  Jonathan 

many  of  us,  had  blinded  him  to  the  deeper  and 
compelling  purposes  of  his  existence. 

"  This,  as  I  say,  was  the  sum  of  all  we  said  that 
morning.  I  took  her  hand,  more  I  confess  for  the 
pleasure  of  feeling  it  touch  my  own  than  for  any 
outward  symbol  of  a  pact.  I  knew  there  was 
none.  As  I  held  it  firmly  I  said:  'Friendship  is 
one  of  the  most  perfect  affections  under  the  sun  — 
but  do  you  think  it  contains  the  meaning  of  life 
you  spoke  about  just  now?' 

"  She  let  her  hand  stay  in  mine  a  moment  longer; 
then,  silently,  she  took  it  away,  rose  to  her  feet, 
and  climbed  down  the  steps  to  the  creek." 


CHAPTER  XXI 
JONATHAN'S  ADVENTURE 

'"TIME  is  somewhat  difficult  to  estimate  from 
David's  manuscript.  They  had  begun  by 
keeping  a  calendar,  a  long  fine  bamboo  cane,  with 
notches  for  every  day,  which,  when  the  hut  was 
erected,  they  transferred  to  one  of  the  supports, 
making,  as  Joan  suggested,  a  sort  of  ornamental 
carving  which  in  a  few  years — she  had  said  this 
in  jest,  before  their  failures  at  escape — would 
become  one  of  the  features  of  the  place. 

At  least  on  three  occasions  they  were  not  quite 
sure  whether  the  notch  had  been  made.  Finally, 
those  seventeen  days  or  so  in  the  forest,  when 
they  had  kept  no  count  of  time,  deprived  it  of 
all  accuracy  it  might  have  had.  None  of  them 
were  in  certain  agreement  as  to  the  length  of  time 
they  had  been  away. 

I  assume  it,  then,  to  have  been  about  a  week 

after  this  conversation  between  Joan  and  David 

191 


192  David  and  Jonathan 

that  there  befell  an  incident  which,  as  I  see  it  from 
my  distance,  brought  about  the  swift  hastening 
of  events. 

Jonathan  had  been  down,  as  had  almost  become 
his  habit,  to  the  creek.  David  and  Joan  were 
awaiting  his  return,  seated  as  before  on  that  ledge 
of  rock,  but  talking  of  subjects  less  intimate 
than  upon  that  former  occasion.  Indeed,  I  rather 
gather  that  after  their  previous  conversation  they 
tacitly  avoided  any  reference  to  it.  She  must 
have  known  by  then  that  David  was  in  love  with 
her,  yet  so  long  as  his  declaration  had  not  been 
made,  felt  herself  safe,  while  matters  remained 
as  they  were.  It  proves  to  me  how  skilful  her 
treatment  of  those  two  men  must  have  been,  that 
she  kept  her  hands  upon  the  reins  of  circumstance 
so  long.  Powerful,  in  that  feminine  sense,  those 
hands  must  have  been.  This  was  just  the  type  of 
woman  I  can  imagine  David  giving  his  heart  to. 
There  was  mind  as  well,  and  of  fine  quality  to  go 
with  it.  She  was  no  creature  to  be  won  for  the 
asking.  To  have  flung  the  importunate  passion  of 
desire  at  her  feet  would  have  been  to  lose  all 
chance  of  winning  her. 

Doubtless,  David  knew  this  well  enough.  Never 
had  he  been  slow  to  sense  a  woman's  mind. 


Jonathan's  Adventure  193 

So  it  seems  to  me  he  kept  silence  all  that  while, 
knowing  that  any  declaration  of  love,  in  such 
circumstances  as  those,  must  have  savoured  of 
passionate  importunity.  The  declaration  that  was 
wanted  must  be  in  deeds,  not  in  words. 

But  of  Joan  herself,  throughout  the  whole  of 
this  period,  when  the  fate  of  all  of  them  was  swing- 
ing in  the  scales,  it  is  hard  to  make  any  certain 
analysis.  There  is  little  doubt  she  knew  every- 
thing— everything  passing  in  David's  mind,  every- 
thing likely  at  any  moment  to  become  urgent  in 
Jonathan's.  Yet  how  far  that  knowledge  was 
conscious,  I  for  one,  and  a  mere  outsider  at  that, 
should  not  attempt  to  say. 

So  far  as  I  feel  justified  in  hazarding  a  guess,  it 
would  be  that,  at  that  time,  swayed  between  the 
attractions  of  one  and  the  qualities  of  the  other, 
she  was  too  much  in  two  minds  to  be  in  love  with 
either.  Her  evident  interest  in  David's  powers  of 
understanding,  her  obvious  admiration  of  Jona- 
than's abilities  in  those  surroundings,  seem  to 
have  been  sufficient  to  put  any  woman  in  such 
a  quandary  of  mind  as  would  totally  incapacitate 
her  for  any  certainty  of  subtle  emotions. 

Love,  when  it  really  does  come  to  a  woman,  is 
no  uncertain  thing.  She  accepts  wholly,  abso- 


194  David  and  Jonathan 

lutely,  questioning  nothing,  or  would  it  be  better 
said,  accepting  all.  To  such  a  state  of  mind  it 
would  appear  to  me  well-nigh  impossible  for  a 
woman  to  arrive  in  those  extraordinary  conditions. 
She  could  not  choose;  for  to  choose  one  was  utterly 
to  eliminate  the  other.  In  calling  for  friendship 
she  knew  she  was  asking  for  a  negative  condition, 
merely  as  a  safeguard  to  herself;  a  postponing 
influence,  giving  her  that  time  to  think,  to  under- 
stand it  all.  How  she  must  have  coveted  every 
hour  she  won ! 

As  David  had  conceived,  so  doubtless  she  knew 
as  well.  It  was  deeds  that  would  win  her,  not 
words.  More  and  more,  as  the  time  went  by 
and  the  precedents  of  civilization  were  gradually 
broken  down  between  them,  she  must  have  been 
convinced  of  the  truth  of  what  he  told  her.  Brute 
force  would  be  the  deciding  factor.  She  must 
have  recognized  the  fact  that  in  the  end  she  had 
no  choice.  Automatically,  she  would  choose  in 
answer  to  that — in  favour  of  it  if  it  swept  her 
with  it — against  it,  if,  in  the  expression  it  took,  it 
repulsed.  But  which  ever  way  it  was,  some  force 
would  be  the  master  of  her,  if  not  the  force  of 
Jonathan's  arms,  which  had  carried  her  so  tirelessly 
through  the  forest  and  borne  her  so  safely  out  of 


Jonathan's  Adventure  195 

the  turmoil  of  that  sea,  then  it  would  be  the  force 
of  David's  mind,  which,  at  every  juncture,  had 
engaged  hers  and  kept  a  sure  ascendancy  she 
scarcely  would  have  been  unable  to  deny. 

I  have  tried  to  put  her  problem  clearly,  because, 
as  with  the  character  of  Jonathan,  so  I  felt  with 
her,  that  I  was  rather  leaving  that  aspect  of  it 
alone.  This,  then,  I  have  ventured  far  more  with 
my  own  initiative,  for  David,  though  he  may 
have  understood  her  considerably  better  than  I, 
maintains  a  by  no  means  surprising  reticence. 
One  does  not  care  to  dissect  the  things  one  really 
loves.  At  least,  I  appreciate  his  silence  about  her 
in  that  light. 

It  was  therefore,  as  I  have  said,  about  a  week 
after  their  intimate  conversation,  that  they  were 
waiting  for  Jonathan's  return  from  the  beach. 
Their  talk  for  an  hour  and  more  had  been  of 
books,  of  pictures,  of  music,  of  the  many  tastes 
they  shared  sufficiently  in  common  to  be  inter- 
ested in  each  other's  disagreements. 

They  had  begun  by  discussing  what  interests 
could  be  added  to  their  life  at  the  creek  to  bring 
it  greater  variety.  David  had  already,  with  no 
little  ingenuity,  carved  out  a  set  of  chessmen  of 
simple  design  and  made  a  board  with  squares  of 


196  David  and  Jonathan 

different  coloured  woods.  He  and  Jonathan  had 
played  often  together  at  first,  but  latterly  the 
board  had  been  idle. 

"If  I  could  get  some  different  pigments  out  of 
those  orchids,"  said  David,  "I  could  make 
some  futurist  decorations  for  the  interior  of 
the  hut." 

He  had  said  it  quite  thoughtlessly,  but  when  he 
turned  to  look  at  her,  her  eyes  were  alive  with 
laughter.  He  had  for  the  moment  forgotten  their 
secret,  and  swore  to  her  most  earnestly  that  it  had 
utterly  gone  out  of  his  mind. 

"Has  it  seemed  to  you  as  natural  as  all  that, 
then?"  she  asked. 

He  admitted  it  had.  "And  why  not?"  he 
added.  "  The  laws  are  the  laws.  It's  only  when 
some  damned  ignorant  person  sees  them  undis- 
guised in  operation  that  he  thinks  what  pre- 
posterous and  improper  things  they  are." 

She  nodded  her  head  interestedly.  "Do  you 
know,  I  like  the  way  you  look  at  things,"  she 
said.  "You  don't  haggle  with  life.  So  many 
people  do  that,  and  it  always  seems  to  me  such  a 
contemptible  waste  of  time.  Things  that  are — 
are.  There's  no  changing  them  till  the  next  time. ' ' 

' '  Let's  collaborate  and  write  a  book  of  philosophy 


Jonathan's  Adventure  197 

while  we're  here,  "  said  he.  "I've  got  a  fountain- 
pen." 

Her  mind  was  a  good  mate  for  his.  For  all  her 
subterfuges  in  that  situation,  she  saw  things  clear 
behind  the  follies  of  convention.  He  knew  well 
enough  she  enjoyed  those  talks  of  theirs,  if  only  by 
the  way  he  enjoyed  them  himself. 

And  then,  when  after  a  while  they  had  dis- 
cussed music  and  painting  and  she  had  heard, 
perhaps  more  intimately  than  ever  before,  the 
real  and  genuine  emotions  he  had  about  them, 
she  suddenly  dropped  her  voice  to  a  tone  of  great 
gentleness,  saying:  "You  poor  old  thing — what 
a  prison  it  must  be  to  you  here." 

"Not  so  much  as  it  is  to  Jonathan, "  he  replied. 
"His  world  must  be  in  the  reach  of  his  arm — he 
must  feel  things  with  his  hands,  touch  them  and 
break  them  or  make  them.  There's  nothing  left 
to  make  here  with  your  hands.  A  bed  to  sleep  on 
and  a  roof  over  your  head — what's  that?  Only 
the  beginning  of  life.  He  wants  more  than  that 
to  do." 

"The  moment  I  had  said  that,"  says  David, 
with  real  honesty,  ' '  I  wished  I  had  left  it  unsaid. 
It  was  the  case  for  Jonathan  with  her.  Had  she 
been  the  impersonation  of  a  British  jury  and  I  a 


198  David  and  Jonathan 

barrister  appealing  to  their  sense  of  pity,  1  could 
not  have  said  more  for  his  case  than  that." 

It  was  soon  after  this,  either  because  she  was 
hungry  and  he  was  bringing  the  meal,  or  because 
of  what  David  had  said,  her  thoughts  began  to 
turn  more  persistently  upon  Jonathan.  Gradu- 
ally David  was  finding  that  he  could  not  be  elim- 
inated from  the  conversation.  Back  she  came  to 
him  again  and  again,  till  at  last,  as  the  sun  was 
dropping  in  its  swift  descent  below  the  topmost 
line  of  the  trees,  she  proposed  they  should  go 
down  and  look  for  him. 

Down  the  steps  to  the  creek  they  went,  and  to 
the  verge  of  the  forest,  the  sensation  overtaking 
them  at  every  step  that  something  had  happened 
to  keep  him  so  late.  When  suddenly  and  un- 
expectedly she  raised  her  voice,  calling  his  name 
loudly  three  separate  times,  David  declared  that 
he  felt  not  only  a  thrill  of  fear  at  what  might  have 
happened,  but,  far  deeper  than  that,  a  hot  sense  of 
jealousy  she  could  be  so  concerned. 

At  the  sound  of  his  voice  in  reply,  shouting: 
' '  Hallo !  Hallo ! "  he  went  so  far  as  to  laugh  at  the 
perturbation  of  her  mind.  And  when  she  heard 
his  laugh,  she  as  quickly  answered  it  as  though 
it  were  an  accusation. 


Jonathan's  Adventure  199 

"I  didn't  know,"  she  said,  "whether  anything 
had  happened  to  him  or  not." 

They  were  so  close  in  touch  in  their  minds  as 
that. 

And  then  Jonathan  appeared  out  of  the  thick 
growth  of  elephant  grass,  walking  unsteadily, 
as  though  he  soon  must  fall,  either  from  some 
weakness  that  had  overcome  him,  or  the  weight 
of  the  thing  he  carried  on  his  shoulder. 

They  stood  a  moment,  arrested  by  surprise  at 
the  unsteadiness  of  his  steps.  The  first  thing  they 
realized  was  that  it  was  the  body  of  a  leopard,  a 
huge  specimen,  slung  over  his  back.  As  he  came 
nearer,  they  saw  his  face  was  bleeding  and  those 
thick,  tanned  arms  of  his  torn  with  great  bleeding 
gashes  from  which  the  blood  was  dripping  in  a 
stream  and  falling  in  big  drops  from  his  finger-tips. 

In  an  instant,  Joan  had  hurried  through  the  gate 
in  the  palisade,  and  was  at  his  side,  freeing  the 
load  from  his  shoulders.  The  next,  and  David 
had  joined  her.  Together,  they  helped  him  into 
the  hut.  He  was  weak  from  loss  of  blood.  All 
the  clothes  on  his  body  were  drenched  with  it. 
He  laughed  at  their  efforts  to  help  him,  and  then, 
strong  man  though  he  was,  he  dropped  off  into 
unconsciousness. 


200  David  and  Jonathan 

When  he  came  to,  in  about  five  or  ten  minutes, 
they  heard  from  him  what  had  happened,  though 
it  was  patent  enough.  He  had  come  across  a 
leopard  on  his  way  back.  Three  cartridges  he 
had  left  in  his  heavy  automatic,  which  he  had 
always  saved  for  such  a  moment  as  that,  and, 
seeing  the  excellent  mark  she  made,  knowing,  too, 
that  leopard's  flesh  was  good  eating,  he  had  used 
one  of  them,  without  a  thought  of  consequences. 
The  bullet  had  gone  home,  but  leopards  are  tough 
beasts.  He  had  had  to  fight  out  the  end  of  it 
with  his  naked  hands.  The  advantages  had  been 
on  his  side.  She  was  dying  all  the  time,  but  it 
had  been  from  all  accounts  a  fierce  struggle. 

"We've  got  a  bit  of  meat,  though,"  said  he, 
with  a  grin. 

David  adds  bitterly  to  this:  "The  way  he 
said  that,  with  the  blood  still  rolling  down  his 
cheeks  and  his  arms  all  ribbands  of  flesh,  was 
worth  more  than  all  the  finest  thoughts  the  best 
of  philosophers  could  put  into  a  dozen  trenchant 
sentences.  With  a  quick  little  laugh,  Joan  an- 
swered to  it,  a  short  laugh,  half  of  amusement, 
half  sympathy,  needing  no  words  at  all." 


CHAPTER  XXII 

JUSTIFICATION 

1 0AN  nursed  him  and  attended  to  his  bandages 
^  for  ten  days,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suggest 
but  that  this  was  a  job  well  to  her  liking.  She  ruled 
him  like  a  child,  except  over  one  matter.  He 
insisted  on  skinning  his  beast  the  next  morning. 
This  was  no  job  of  which  David  was  capable. 
He  offered,  but  there  was  a  skin  to  be  saved,  and 
Jonathan,  being  the  only  one  to  do  it,  would  take 
no  orders  from  her. 

"You'd  like  the  skin — wouldn't  you?"  said  he, 
and  when  she  could  not  deny  it,  added,  "then 
don't  let's  have  any  more  nurse's  talk." 

Beyond  this  matter,  however,  he  was  as  obedient 
as  a  child,  putting  up  with  pleasure  with  all  the 
pain  she  gave  him  by  her  unskilled  bandaging. 
It  was  due  greatly  to  her  care,  nevertheless,  that 
he  recovered  as  quickly  as  he  did.  But  whether 
he  knew  that  or  not,  makes  little  difference.  The 
matter  of  chief  importance  was  that  he  could 

201 


202  David  and  Jonathan 

no  longer  go  down  with  his  moods  of  chafing 
impotence  to  the  beach.  Whether  he  liked  it  or 
not,  he  had  to  content  himself  with  her  company. 
During  all  those  ten  days,  during  which  he 
never  saw  her  alone  and  only  shared  her  com- 
pany at  meal  times,  David  was  left  to  fret  his 
soul  out  with  the  best  grace  he  could.  What  is 
more,  the  finding  of  the  supply  of  food  devolved 
entirely  on  him,  and,  though  he  may  have  suc- 
ceeded well  enough,  there  was  a  noticeable  differ- 
ence in  his  catering  to  that  of  Jonathan's.  One 
evening  he  returned  from  the  beach  without  any 
fish  at  all.  They  had  to  content  themselves  solely 
with  fruit.  His  traps  were  not  so  successfully  set 
as  when  Jonathan  was  responsible  for  them. 

"All  those  ten  days,"  he  says,  "I  felt  as  though 
I  were  passing  through  a  qualifying  examination 
and  failing  miserably  at  every  turn.  And  there 
that  leopard  skin  used  to  hang,  drying  in  the  sun, 
a  constant  witness  of  Jonathan's  strength  to  set 
against  my  own  incompetence." 

It  seems  to  have  been  in  those  ten  days,  left  so 
much  to  himself,  robbed  of  her  company  and  feel- 
ing by  instinct  how  every  moment  she  was  endear- 


Justification  203 

ing  herself  to  Jonathan,  that  David  came  by  the 
first  real  impulse  of  hatred  for  his  friend.  Yet  it 
cannot  be  described  so  much  as  hatred  of  him,  as 
hatred  of  those  qualities  which  he  knew  must  be 
appealing,  the  more  by  their  present  quiescence  in 
Jonathan,  to  Joan. 

It  would  be  false  psychology  to  deny  that  by 
now  his  passions  as  well  as  his  sentiments  were 
deeply  roused.  And  the  more  he  was  left  to  him- 
self, the  more  fierce  the  hold  they  took  upon  him. 

It  was,  as  it  had  ever  been  between  those  two, 
that  David  moved  more  impulsively  and  swiftly 
to  the  situations  of  his  mind.  While  Jonathan  was 
only  slowly  realizing  through  his  senses,  David  had 
leaped  to  the  conclusion  in  his  thoughts.  Long  be- 
fore, as  indeed  he  had  said  to  Joan  herself,  he  had  re- 
alized this  bitter  antagonism  would  be  the  outcome 
of  it  all,  and,  well  though  he  knew  it,  found  himself 
unable  in  those  days  alone  to  allay  its  progress. 

It  was  inevitable.  He  felt  it  a  law  stronger 
than  himself.  Fight  as  he  might  against  it, 
there  always  came  some  moment  at  night,  when 
lying  awake,  listening  to  Jonathan's  peaceful 
breathing,  it  returned  as  master  of  all  his  thoughts. 

What  had  they  said  to  each  other  that  day,  he 
wondered.  How  had  their  friendship  progressed  ? 


204  David  and  Jonathan 

Whenever  he  saw  her  examining  that  leopard  skin 
with  pleasure  at  the  thought  of  her  ultimate  pos- 
session of  it,  he  cursed  the  luck  that  had  brought 
it  within  range  of  Jonathan's  weapon.  What  is 
more,  he  felt  every  day  that  Jonathan  was  grow- 
ing to  understand  and  to  like  her  better.  Weak 
though  he  was  from  loss  of  blood,  and  more  than 
ever  a  prisoner  in  that  bed  to  which  she  kept  him, 
his  moodiness  steadily  disappeared. 

The  first  night,  as  he  lay  there,  smarting  with  his 
wounds,  he  swore  again  and  again  at  the  chance 
that  had  brought  him  to  this  state  of  imprison- 
ment. That  discontent  gradually  decreased,  until 
after  five  days  of  it,  he  was  more  of  a  cheerful 
companion  than  he  had  been  for  many  weeks. 
The  more,  however,  he  expressed  this  cheerfulness, 
the  more  David's  spirits  fell;  the  more  the  canker 
of  hatred  and  jealousy  spread  in  his  heart.  There 
was  no  outlet  for  it.  It  had  to  rankle  where  it 
was,  bringing  with  it  too,  a  hatred  of  himself 
making  life  almost  unbearable. 

"Had  it  continued  for  another  day  beyond  those 
ten,"  he  writes,  "I  must  have  spoken  out  my  mind 
to  her;  must  have  forced  her  into  that  invidious 
position  of  choosing  between  us  two,  when  she  had 


Justification  205 

shown  me  so  plainly  by  her  proffer  of  friendship 
that  she  would  do  anything  to  avoid  it.  The 
issue  lay  between  myself  and  Jonathan.  I  still 
believed  that.  Her  choice  in  the  matter  made 
very  little  difference  to  us.  She  was  the  justifica- 
tion of  our  lives  thereon  that  God-forsaken  coast, 
and  for  that  justification  I  know  that  I  was  quite 
ready  to  take  whatever  risks  there  might  be. 

' '  If  what  I  thought  was  happening  in  Jonathan's 
mind  in  those  ten  days  had  taken  place,  then  I 
knew  that  neither  of  us  could  rest  content  with  her 
choosing.  Besides,  could  she  choose?  Was  there 
such  a  gulf  fixed  between  us  two  as  all  that  ?  We 
both  must  have  our  claims  in  her  mind.  It  was 
no  conceit  in  my  estimation  to  think  that  my 
chances,  or  rather  my  rights,  were  as  good  as  his. 
I  would  have  said  that  with  any  man;  though  I 
doubt  if  a  better  could  have  been  found  than 
him  whom  I  hated  then  with  all  my  heart. 

"For  at  the  back  of  my  mind  was  the  knowledge, 
always  repressed  in  my  thoughts,  that  in  that 
place  he  was  a  better  mate  for  her  than  I.  In 
those  conditions  of  life,  well  though  we  might 
have  been  able  to  face  contingencies  together,  he 
was  the  better  equipped,  the  fittest  of  us  two  to 
carry  out  the  elemental  preservation  of  his  kind. 


206  David  and  Jonathan 

' '  Whenever  I  looked  at  it  in  this  light,  I  despaired 
most  of  all;  for  there  was  reason,  good  enough 
for  any  man  who  prided  himself  on  that  quality,  to 
stand  aside.  Yet  the  preservation  of  my  kind  had 
as  much  right  upon  insistence  as  had  his.  It  was 
as  dear,  if  not  dearer  to  me  in  definite  and  con- 
scious sensation  than  his  could  be  to  him.  And 
then,  coming  to  that  moment  of  my  reason,  an- 
other thought  would  fling  itself  uninvited  into  my 
mind.  In  those  environments,  was  mine  the  kind 
that  would  survive  in  obedience  to  the  common 
and  primal  laws  with  which  it  was  surrounded? 

"So  I  argued  it  back  and  forth,  as  though  it 
were  a  mere  dispassionate  problem  in  eugenics 
But  there  was  the  crux  of  it  all.  It  was  not  dis- 
passionate. Try  as  I  would,  I  could  not  make  it 
so.  If  ever  a  problem  was  quivering  with  the 
existence  of  passion,  this  was  one.  How  could  I 
yield  claim  for  myself?  I  lived.  In  my  body  was 
the  breath,  in  my  mind  the  same  spark  of  life  as 
in  Jonathan's. 

"  And  then  suddenly — it  was  on  that  tenth  day 
— it  all  became  clear.  I  had  the  right  of  my  own 
entity.  I  had  the  justification  to  claim  her  if  I 
could.  This  was  the  test  of  life — not  to  give  in, 
but  to  struggle;  not  to  surrender,  but  to  fight. 


Justification  207 

It  was  due  to  myself  to  prove  what  strength  I  had. 
It  was  due  to  Jonathan  to  test  and  prove  his  own. 

' '  How  else  could  it  be  proved  which  was  the 
fitter  mate  for  her,  unless,  indeed,  we  put  it  to  the 
test  ?  How  else,  unless  proved  in  such  a  fashion, 
could  she,  in  her  deepest  heart,  realize  she  had 
gained  the  better  man  ?  It  was  due,  then,  to  my- 
self. It  was  due  to  Jonathan,  and  most  of  all, 
seeing  that  I  loved  her,  I  knew  it  was  due  to  her. 

"  The  night  on  which  I  had  come  to  these  final 
decisions,  I  went  to  my  bed  in  a  more  cheerful 
frame  of  mind,  hating  Jonathan  less,  if  hating  him 
at  all.  Against  all  his  good  humour,  I  matched 
my  own,  feeling  somehow  that  the  fight  between 
us  was  not  with  fists  alone. 

"He  realized  quickly  enough  the  return  of  my 
spirits.  He  must  have  felt  them  battling  up 
against  his  own,  for  he  half  sat  up  in  his  bed  and 
watched  me  in  surprise  as  I  flung  my  clothes  off, 
whistling  as  I  did  so. 

"  '  You  seem  in  a  mighty  good  temper,'  said  he, 
and  I  almost  laughed  as  I  heard  the  note  of  sus- 
picion in  his  voice. 

"'  Oh— well  enough,'  I  replied.  'As  good  as 
your  own.' 

"  '  Anything  happened  to  buck  you  up?' 


208  David  and  Jonathan 

"  I  knew  well  what  he  meant.  I  knew  only  too 
well  then  that  the  spark  of  jealousy  at  last  was  lit 
in  him ;  was  lit  and  that  he  was  aware  of  the  flame 
of  it  too.  There  was  even  an  ugly  look  in  his  eyes 
as  I  turned  round  laughing  to  answer  his  question. 
For  that  one  second  I  felt  sorry  for  him.  I  knew 
the  tortures  of  mind  he  was  just  entering  upon, 

tortures  that  would  last  as  mine  had  lasted,  till,  in 

» 
the  knowledge  that  he  could  bear  them  no  longer, 

our  moment  of  the  test  would  be  reached. 

"  I  am  not  going  to  deny  that  that  moment  of 
pity  was  short-lived,  one  of  the  ephemera  of  our 
better  thoughts  that  hover  for  an  instant  on  the 
surface  of  our  minds  and  then  are  gone.  The 
next  second,  I  was  playing  with  his  jealousy,  talking 
in  riddles  that  had  no  foundation,  but  too  deep  for 
him  to  reason  out.  For  then,  in  his  hatred,  my  own 
was  back  again  and  I  drove  my  wits  against  his  to 
spur  him  on.  He  was  as  well  that  night  as  he  had 
ever  been,  and  I  think  I  would  not  have  been 
sorry  to  have  had  our  battle  then  with  no  more 
delay  to  it  than  the  mere  ceremony  of  selecting  a 
convenient  place  where  she  should  hear  nothing 
of  what  was  going  on. 

"  That,  however,  was  not  to  be.  After  a  while 
Jonathan  relapsed  under  my  humour  into  a  sulky 


Justification  209 

silence.  He  did  not  know  what  had  happened. 
I  had  not  done  so  much  injustice  to  Joan  as  to 
suggest  that  anything  had  happened  at  all.  It 
was  only  that  the  more  I  saw  the  effect  of  my 
high  spirits  on  him  and  the  more  I  knew  the 
thoughts  that  were  set  racing  in  his  mind,  the 
more  I  kept  them  up,  until,  at  last,  beaten  in  that 
encounter,  he  withdrew,  without  even  knowing 
of  the  contest  in  which  he  had  been  engaged. 

"But  all  was  certain  now  to  me,  and  I  lay 
awake  long  hours  through  that  night,  while  he 
was  sleeping  soundly,  wondering  how  I  should  fare 
when  the  issue  came  about.  On  the  face  of  it,  I 
knew  I  had  little  more  chance  than  a  dog.  On  the 
face  of  it,  as  he  had  beaten  me  at  school,  so  he 
would  beat  me  here,  and  with  less  mercy  than 
in  that  schoolboy  quarrel. 

"Still,  I  had  my  wits,  and,  as  I  thought  of  Joan,  I 
felt  in  myself  a  strength  which  only  the  elemental 
force  of  my  purpose  could  have  given  me.  My 
heart,  it  seemed  then,  was  as  strong  as  ten  men,  as 
strong  as  a  hundred  of  those  I  knew  in  the  old 
life  who  had  thought  themselves  in  love. 

"I  was  in  truth  in  love,  and  before  my  heart 
had  ceased  to  beat  that  message  to  my  brain,  it 
appeared  to  me,  while  I  lay  awake,  as  if  some 

14 


2io  David  and  Jonathan 

greater  strength  than  the  mere  power  of  Jonathan's 
blows  would  be  needed  to  defeat  my  will. 

"  There  was  the  faint  tinge  of  dawn  in  the  sky 
before  I  fell  asleep.  Against  it  I  saw  the  feathered 
edges  of  the  palm  trees  pricking  into  the  light ;  I 
heard  the  faint,  muffled  cry  of  a  bird,  and  I  just 
murmured  her  name  to  myself  as  I  closed  my  eyes." 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE   APPROACH    OF   THE   INEVITABLE 

CROM  that  day  of  Jonathan's  recovery  from  his 
wounds,  the  strain  upon  them  appears  to  have 
increased  with  a  steady  and  inevitable  precision. 
Once  having  confessed  to  himself  his  belief  in  the 
ultimate  issue,  David's  thoughts  seem  to  have 
permeated  all  their  minds.  He  and  Jonathan 
were  watching  each  other  now,  quick-eyed  to 
notice  the  development  of  each  other's  relations 
with  Joan,  yet,  doubtless,  striving  in  their  several 
ways  to  avoid  or  postpone  the  unavoidable. 

Little  wonder  is  it  that  David  describes  those 
days  at  the  creek  as  unbearable.  He  writes  of 
them  as  if,  full  of  psychological  interest  though 
they  must  have  been,  he  could  not  allude  to  them 
but  with  reserve.  Neither  one  nor  the  other 
dared  pay  any  noticeable  attention  to  her,  not 
from  fear,  but  knowledge  of  how  it  would  hasten 
the  climax  and  bring  about  that  issue  they  both 

211 


212  David  and  Jonathan 

would  have  shirked  if  they  could,  yet  knew  must 
be. 

To  any  one  surrounded  with  all  the  distractions 
of  civilization,  it  cannot  but  be  hard  to  realize 
the  atmosphere  which  must  have  closed  about 
them  during  that  time.  Thunder  in  the  air,  it 
was,  and  all  the  heavy  pressage  of  the  inevitable 
storm.  They  tried  to  occupy  themselves  with 
things  to  do  about  the  creek,  but  neither  would 
leave  the  other  alone,  or  give  each  other  opportu- 
nity of  seeing  Joan  by  herself. 

This  may  sound  childish  and  ridiculous.  There 
is  little  doubt  it  was;  yet  all  of  it  was  done  in  such 
spirit  of  cunning,  amounting  sometimes  to  deceit 
in  both  of  them,  that,  as  David  says  in  his  script : 
"I  look  back  upon  it  now  in  the  full  perspective 
of  time  and  marvel  to  think  men  could  so  descend 
in  their  natures  to  such  pettiness  and  contempti- 
bility  of  thought,  word,  and  deed." 

It  was  obvious  that  such  a  state  of  affairs  could 
not  last  for  long.  That  it  lasted  as  long  as  it  did, 
seems  only  explicable  to  me  in  the  fact  that  they 
were  both  endeavouring  to  ward  it  off  for  her 
sake.  Had  it  been  any  other  issue  than  this, 
without  question  the  matter  would  have  been 
settled  by  word  or  blow  long  before.  But  there, 


The  Approach  of  the  Inevitable     213 

in  those  surroundings,  not  an  action  of  theirs 
could  for  any  length  of  time  escape  her  notice. 
There  was  no  hiding  from  her  the  issue  when  it 
came  to  be  decided.  There  was  no  concealing 
from  her  the  purpose  that  had  brought  it  about,  or 
how,  whether  she  willed  it  or  not,  she  was  herself 
directly  responsible. 

This,  I  can  conceive,  as  some  substantial  ground 
for  the  impossible  situation  in  which  they  found 
themselves,  and,  for  all  I  know,  that  condition  of 
affairs  might  have  continued  for  some  time,  had 
not  Joan  herself  unwittingly  put  an  end  to  it. 

With  what  David  had  said  about  brute  force 
running  constantly,  as  no  doubt  it  did,  in  her  mind, 
she  was  an  apprehensive  spectator  of  this  palpable 
change  in  their  manner  to  each  other.  Here  were 
two  friends,  the  best  in  the  world,  playing  at  some 
game  which  at  least,  if  she  did  not  understand, 
must  have  thrilled  some  function  of  her  conscious- 
ness with  a  sense  of  fear.  She  found  herself 
dreading  the  night  when  they  were  alone  together, 
relieved  in  the  morning  when  they  both  appeared 
at  breakfast  and  nothing  apparently  had  happened. 

But  as  with  them,  so  also  with  her,  the  strain 
of  the  situation  came  at  last  to  be  unbearable.  I 
take  it  that  still,  even  in  that  eleventh  hour,  she 


214  David  and  Jonathan 

did  not  know  the  absolute  dictation  of  her  heart. 
Jonathan,  certainly,  as  David  had  known,  had 
endeared  himself  to  her  during  those  days  of  his 
helplessness,  no  less  than  by  the  circumstances 
which  had  placed  her  at  his  service. 

Yet  there  cannot  but  have  been  times,  during 
those  ten  days  and  after,  when  her  pity  went  out 
to  David,  weighed  down  with  his  conviction  that 
he  was  unequally  handicapped  in  his  chances 
against  such  a  man  as  Jonathan. 

That  both  loved  and  wanted  her  then,  she  was 
well  aware.  David  gives  proof  of  this  in  his 
description  of  the  way  she  strove  to  ignore  their 
present  moods  and  suggest  they  were,  so  far  as  she 
could  see,  the  same  friends  as  ever. 

All  these  efforts  of  hers,  however,  apparently 
failed,  for  there  came  a  day  when  she  felt  she  must 
speak  her  thoughts  to  one  of  them,  and  it  appears 
to  me  inevitable  she  should  have  chosen  David 
for  her  confidant.  Whatever  there  was  to  be 
understood,  she  turned  involuntarily  to  him. 

It  was  one  morning  after  their  breakfast  meal 
that  she  taunted  Jonathan  with  laziness. 

"Ever  since  you  got  well,"  said  she,  with  a 
laugh,  "you've  been  as  idle  as  you  can  be." 

Perhaps  the  truth  of  that  touched  him.     Idle- 


The  Approach  of  the  Inevitable     215 

ness  brought  no  pleasure  to  his  day.  Perhaps  he 
felt  he  was  earning  her  contempt  as  well  as  his 
own.  When  a  man  sets  out  to  please  a  woman,  it 
is  more  the  best  in  himself  he  does  than  the  things 
he  might  realize  would  please  her  most.  For 
those  last  few  days,  set  in  his  watch  upon  David, 
he  knew  he  had  done  far  from  the  best  in  himself, 
and  suddenly  believing  he  was  thus  losing  her 
respect,  was  eager  to  perform  anything  she  asked 
of  him. 

But  when  she  told  him  they  had  had  no  fish 
those  seven  days  and  more,  because  he  had  never 
been  down  to  the  beach,  his  face  fell  so  obviously 
that  in  any  other  situation  the  fall  of  it  would  have 
been  humorous. 

"David  might  as  well  go,"  said  he.  "I've 
caught  most  of  the  fish  we've  ever  eaten  here." 

She  had  the  wit  to  laugh  at  him  as  though  he 
were  a  child. 

"That's  just  why  you  ought  to  go,"  said  she. 
"Don't  you  remember  one  of  the  days  when  you 
were  laid  up,  David  came  back  without  catching 
anything.  And  can't  I  say  I  should  like  some?" 

He  laughed  with  her,  feeling  that  as  far  as  David 
was  concerned,  the  issue  of  that  was  to  him.  He 
could  not,  however,  understand  why  David  laughed 


216  David  and  Jonathan 

as  well  against  himself.  For  David's  laughter 
was  because  he  knew  she  had  won  her  point.  He 
knew  well  enough  she  sought  some  reason  to  see 
him  alone,  and,  good  or  ill,  whatever  it  might  bring, 
the  thought  of  speaking  to  her,  as  they  had  so 
often  talked  by  the  hour  together  without  fear  of 
interruption,  was  a  thing  he  had  desired  again  and 
again. 

At  David's  laughter,  Jonathan  lost  his  sense 
of  victory  in  suspicion.  Still  he  went,  shouldering 
his  tackle  in  none  the  best  of  spirits,  and  saying 
he  thought  some  measure  of  the  division  of  labour 
ought  to  be  arrived  at. 

"If  David's  not  a  skilled  labourer,"  said  he, 
"we  shan't  be  able  to  give  him  a  vote  at  the  board 
of  directors,"  and  he  went  off  laughing  at  his 
thrust,  which  had  its  subtlety  of  point,  piercing 
through  the  chinks  of  David's  armour  and  making 
the  blood  sting  hot  in  his  face. 

That,  as  he  knew  well  enough,  was  the  crux 
of  it  all.  Because  of  that,  when  it  came  to  the 
test  between  them,  he  felt  in  his  despondent 
moments  that  of  a  certainty  he  would  fail. 

But  once  Jonathan  had  gone,  there  they  were 
alone  in  the  creek.  Feeling  in  those  moments 
that  the  world  belonged  to  them  two,  his  spirits 


The  Approach  of  the  Inevitable     217 

rose  no  sooner  had  the  sound  of  Jonathan's  paddle 
died  away  in  the  distance. 

For  a  while,  curbing  his  eagerness  with  all  the 
power  of  will  he  possessed,  he  stood  gazing  down 
into  the  forest  as  though  following  the  uncertain 
course  of  the  canoe  with  his  eyes,  when,  in  reality 
he  was  seeing  nothing,  but  listening  with  every 
sense  in  his  body  to  those  sounds  of  her  footsteps 
when  she  would  approach  him. 

She  came  at  last,  slowly,  expecting  him  every 
minute  to  turn.  But  he  never  moved  a  muscle 
of  his  body  until  she  was  there  beside  him.  Had 
he  turned,  and  turned  eagerly,  as  perhaps  she 
counted  he  would,  some  degree  of  the  issue  would 
have  gone  in  Jonathan's  favour  then.  Jonathan 
had  gone  at  her  behest.  Not  too  graciously  it 
may  have  been,  but  he  had  gone.  And  then,  with 
the  opportunity  that  was  left  him,  David  knew  had 
he  shown  her  his  eagerness  to  make  swift  use  of 
it,  he  would  have  dropped  in  the  estimation  of 
her  mind. 

With  the  slowness  of  her  approach,  it  was  almost 
as  though  she  were  putting  him  to  the  test. 
In  some  subtle  way  he  felt  the  presence  of  her  will 
there  in  close  conflict  with  his  own.  He  wanted 
to  turn,  to  even  take  her  in  his  arms,  as  many  a 


218  David  and  Jonathan 

man  less  sensitive  of  her  thoughts  might  have 
imagined  she  had  sought  out  that  opportunity 
for;  but  he  knew  himself  and  her  too  well. 

"The  man,"  he  has  said  somewhere  else  in  his 
script,  "who  acts  before  he  is  sure  is  thirty  times 
a  fool." 

In  another  place — indeed  when  describing  this 
very  moment — he  writes:  "The  man  who  can 
wait  when  the  instant  comes  for  waiting,  knows 
as  much  about  the  heart  of  a  woman  as  it  is  good 
or  possible  for  him  to  know." 

So  he  never  turned.  Until  her  hand  was  laid 
on  his  elbow  he  continued  to  stare  absorbedly 
into  the  tangle  of  the  forest  trees,  while  all  that 
time  a  haze  was  hanging  before  his  eyes  in  which 
he  could  see  nothing  but  her. 

"A  penny,"  she  said,  and  when  he  asked  her 
what  he  could  buy  with  it,  she  forced  a  laugh  to 
go  with  his  words. 

It  was  his  intention,  he  says,  to  let  her  know 
nothing  of  his  expectation  that  she  had  something 
to  tell  him.  Whether  he  thinks  it  deceived  her  or 
not,  he  does  not  say,  but  try  as  he  would,  he  could 
not  conceal  his  pleasure  when  she  suggested  they 
should  climb  those  steps  to  the  ledge  of  rock  and 
sit  there  and  talk. 


The  Approach  of  the  Inevitable      219 

For  a  long  time  after  they  had  settled  them- 
selves there,  neither  of  them  spoke.  Both  stared 
down  into  the  forest.  Both  were  as  silent  as 
though  never  a  thought  existed  between  them. 
To  that  purpose  of  waiting,  he  kept  till  the  last, 
though  his  tongue  was  eager  with  words  to  say, 
and  his  heart  was  beating  at  the  close  presence  of 
her  sitting  beside  him  in  that  silent  place. 

"Never,"  he  says,  "have  I  had  to  exert  more 
control  upon  my  impulses  than  in  those  few 
moments  before  she  spoke.  I  hope  to  God  I  shall 
never  have  to  exert  as  much  again." 

For  at  last  she  did  break  the  silence.  Never 
looking  at  him,  but  keeping  her  eyes  fixed  before 
her,  she  asked  him  straightly  whether  anything 
had  happened  between  himself  and  Jonathan. 

"What  makes  you  think  that?"  he  inquired, 
guardedly. 

"Well — your  manner  to  each  other  has  changed 
so  much  in  the  last  few  days.  Hearing  you 
talk,  seeing  you  in  each  other's  company,  no  one 
would  ever  suppose  you  had  been  friends,  cer- 
tainly not  the  very  close  friends  I  know  you  really 
are." 

"What  do  you  imagine  could  have  happened 
in  a  deserted  place  like  this?"  he  asked  her, 


220  David  and  Jonathan 

determined  it  should  be  she  of  them  two  who 
first  should  speak  the  meaning  of  their  minds. 

"I  have  tried  so  hard  to  think,"  she  replied. 

"Well— with  what  result ? " 

"Sometimes  I've  thought  you  have  both  been 
fretting  so  terribly  at  being  kept  here,  prisoners 
on  this  coast,  that  you've  lost  the  sense  of  friend- 
ship, lost  the  sense  of  everything  in  the  bitterness 
of  the  shackles  you  find  all  tied  about  you." 

"And  at  other  times?"  he  prompted  her. 

"Yes — then  at  other  times —  "  and  here,  stam- 
mering a  word  or  two,  almost  incoherently,  at  last 
she  broke  down.  Her  lips  were  quivering  as  she 
turned  to  him  pathetically,  reduced  at  length  to 
the  utmost  simplicity  of  her  mind. 

"You  know  what  I'm  thinking,  David.  I 
know  you  know.  And  I  want  you  to  say  it's  been 
no  fault  of  mine.  I — I  haven't  meant  it  to  be. 
I — I  couldn't  help  it."  With  an  absurdly  sim- 
ple and  almost  childish  gurgling  in  her  throat, 
she  said  then:  "I  haven't  used  those — those  pet- 
als at  all  for  quite  a  long,  long  time." 

He  covered  his  face  fiercely  with  his  hands. 

' '  My  God ! "  he  exclaimed  wildly .  ' '  For  heaven '  s 
sake  don't  talk  like  that!  Don't  say  ridiculous 
things  like  that- — that  sort  of  regard  of  it  would 


The  Approach  of  the  Inevitable     221 

bowl  me  right  out.  Let's  be  hard  and  matter- 
of-fact  if  we're  going  to  be  anything  at  all*  That's 
the  only  way  I  could  stand  it." 

So  it  was  again  they  sat  for  another  while 
in  silence,  David  with  his  knuckles  against  his 
teeth,  listening  to  the  sound  of  her  quick,  indrawn 
breaths  and  not  daring  to  look  at  her  while  she 
struggled  with  her  tears ;  scarcely  daring  to  move 
lest  even  in  the  relaxation  of  his  tension,  emotions 
should  get  the  better  of  him  and  leap  beyond  his 
control. 

There  was  apparently  in  his  conception  of  it  all, 
an  odd  sense  of  honour  attached.  Weeping  as 
she  was,  and  in  that  stress  of  mind  when  she  might 
have  found  some  sense  of  comfort  in  his  arms,  he 
yet  could  not  bring  himself  to  touch  even  her  hand, 
because  he  felt  it  due  to  Jonathan,  until  by  the 
test  it  was  proved  which  of  them  had  the  right. 
At  that  juncture,  surely  enough,  she  belonged  to 
neither.  Yet  each  had  his  claim  and  nothing  with- 
in the  power  of  his  control  would  have  tempted 
David  to  violate  the  unwritten  law  by  which  those 
claims  were  definitely  established  in  his  mind. 

He  waited,  therefore,  until  she  spoke  again, 
trusting  no  sound  of  words  on  his  own  lips,  listen- 
ing with  fear  to  the  sound  of  his  own  breathing. 


222  David  and  Jonathan 

Presently  she  was  quieter,  and  he  knew  she  had 
got  her  tears  in  check.  Then  she  said : 

"What  are  you  both  going  to  do?" 

It  was  pathetic  almost  to  realize  how  she 
knew  by  now  the  matter  was  not  in  her  hands, 
but  theirs.  So  indeed  had  she  been  somehow 
brought  to  the  elemental  attitude  of  mind,  that 
passive  acquiescence  to  the  right  of  some  might 
greater  than  her  own.  To  her  then  it  seemed 
she  could  only  sit  by  to  watch  and  wait,  and 
the  whole  essence  of  it  was  expressed  in  that 
simple  question:  "What  are  you  both  going  to 
do?" 

Simple  as  it  was,  however,  it  was  too  direct  to 
be  straightly  answered.  David  paused  before  he 
replied,  and  then  he  said : 

' '  What  is  there  to  do  ?  What  can  we  do  ?  I  sup- 
pose— he  hasn't  told  me  so — that  Jonathan's  hit 
as  hard  as  I  am.  I  might  answer  that  question 
by  asking  what  you're  going  to  do.  But  I  expect 
you  know  well  enough  by  this  time  that  whatever 
you  said  wouldn't  make  much  difference  to  the 
one  who  was  cut  out — there's  no  chance  for  him  to 
fling  out  into  life  and  go  to  the  devil  if  his  inclina- 
tions took  him  that  way.  There's  not  even  the 
devil  to  go  to  here.  We're  up  against  life  without 


The  Approach  of  the  Inevitable     223 

any  of  the  alluring  alternatives  of  good  or  evil. 
The  good  is  for  the  man  who  can  get  it,  the  evil, 
what's  left  for  the  other  man  to  take.  That's 
the  gist  of  it  all.  Besides,  even  if  we  could,  do 
you  think  we'd  put  you  in  the  invidious  position 
of  damning  one  or  the  other?  If  the  hope  I've 
got  in  my  heart  is  a  true  one,  you're  not  really  in 
love  with  either  of  us." 

"How  did  you  know  that?"  she  muttered,  as 
though  he  had  stolen  something  from  her  she 
scarcely  knew  she  possessed. 

"I  didn't  know  it,"  he  admitted  candidly. 
"That's  what  I've  hoped;  what,  despite  all  those 
moments  when  you've  shown  preference  for 
Jonathan,  I've  forced  myself  to  believe.  What  is 
more,  I  hoped  for  your  sake  as  well  as  ours  that 
you  won't  know  till  such  a  moment  as  when  there 
is  no  question  of  choice." 

So  swiftly  did  she  seize  upon  this  that  he 
realized,  but  when  it  was  too  late,  how  he  had 
committed  himself. 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that?"  she  asked,  and 
said  it  again  before  she  had  given  him  time  to 
reply.  ' '  What  do  you  mean  by  that  ? ' ' 

"No  particular  meaning  one  way  or  another," 
he  replied  evasively.  But  she  would  not  let  it  go 


224  David  and  Jonathan 

at  that,  pressing  him  with  nervous  determination 
for  an  answer. 

"I  had  no  meaning, "  he  said  at  last  in  a  tone  of 
voice  strained  with  the  persistence  of  her  ques- 
tioning. 

And  then  it  was  her  mind  leapt  with  its  intuition 
to  the  truth. 

"You're  going  to  fight,"  she  said  hoarsely. 
"What  you  said  that  day  in  the  forest — brute 
force — that  was  the  deciding  factor.  You're  going 
to  fight.  Oh,  my  God!  This  is  horrible.  It's—- 
it's so  degrading.  This  is  making  life  hideous,  and 
it  can't  be  as  hideous  as  all  that!" 

"There  isn't  anything  hideous  about  it, "  David 
replied  quietly.  "In  the  back  of  our  hearts,  I 
believe  we're  both  longing  for  the  moment  to 
come,  to  get  at  it,  and  settle  it  once  and  for  all. 
We  fought  when  we  were  kids  at  school.  Why 
shouldn't  we  fight  now?" 

"Yes — you  were  boys  then.  You're  men  now. 
Oh! — I  think  it's  horrible!  Why  can't  we  all  be 
friends,  as  we  were  at  first?" 

At  that  moment  David  felt  he  could  take  her 
hand.  He  laid  his  own  upon  it  and  pressed  his 
fingers  firmly  round  her  own. 

' '  You  know  that's  impossible, ' '  said  he.    ' '  Don't 


The  Approach  of  the  Inevitable     225 

you  remember?  The  meaning  of  life?  There's 
only  meaning  in  friendship  when  you've  known 
what  love  is.  For  God's  sake,  don't  let's  talk 
about  it.  It's  talking  about  it  makes  it  horrible. 
There  are  thousands  of  other  things  we  can  speak 
about,  my  dear,  besides  that.  These  are  the 
first  moments  I've  had  alone  with  you  for  days. 
Don't  spoil  them  for  me.  You  don't  know  what 
they're  worth." 

"Well,  then,  if  you  care  for  me  as  much  as  all 
that,"  she  cried,  "that  you  covet  even  a  moment 
alone  with  me,  promise  me — promise  me  you 
won't  fight." 

She  was  clinging  to  him  then,  both  hands  on  his 
shoulders  and  her  head  bent  in  weeping  on  her 
breast. 

Failing  in  being  able  to  make  that  promise,  he 
evaded  the  difficulty  of  denying  her  anything  by 
asking  her  why  she  should  want  to  extract  it  from 
him. 

"Don't  you  realize,"  he  said,  taking  her  hands 
from  his  shoulders  and  forcing  her  to  look  at  him 
that  she  might  get  the  full  meaning  of  what  he  said 
— "Don't  you  realize  that  it  will  make  it  easier 
for  you  in  the  long  run?  You  can't  get  merely 
friendship  from  either  of  us.  You've  got  to  put 


15 


226  David  and  Jonathan 

that  out  of  your  head.  You  can't  shield  yourself 
behind  all  the  social  palisades  civilization  erects 
for  such  a  purpose  at  home.  You're  at  the  mercy 
of  life,  and  so  are  we.  It'll  be  much  easier  for  you 
when  it's  all  over.  You're  not  in  love  with  either 
of  us;  but — "  he  paused. 

"But  what?  "said  she. 

"Are  you  going  to  hate  me  for  saying  this? " 

"I'm  not  in  the  mood  to  hate  anybody  or  any- 
thing. I  feel  numbed.  Say  it — say  it.  What  is 
it?" 

"Well — you  are  in  love,"  said  he. 

She  stared  at  him,  almost  frightened  at  his 
perception.  ' '  What  do  you  mean  ? ' '  she  muttered. 

"You  are  in  love,"  he  repeated.  "It's  in  the 
air,  and  the  air's  full  of  it.  Do  you  imagine 
people's  thoughts  and  passions  and  emotions,  as 
concentrated  and  uninterrupted  as  ours,  don't 
carry  contagion  with  them?  Ideas  can  rise  to 
the  temperature  of  fever,  and  when  they're  strong 
enough,  and  free  enough,  without  all  the  counter- 
irritants  of  little  social  habits  and  customs,  do 
you  imagine  there  is  any  mind  can  stand  against 
them  without  falling  a  victim?  Did  your  con- 
stitution stand  up  against  the  fever  in  that  atmos- 
phere all  about  the  swamp?  Can  your  mind 


The  Approach  of  the  Inevitable     227 

stand  up  against  this?  War  is  a  fever,  the  fever 
of  a  predominating  idea.  It's  an  epidemic,  and 
whole  nations  get  swept  by  its  contagion.  And 
this — this  is  more  virulent  and  stronger  even  than 
war.  If  England  were  at  war,  wouldn't  you  wish 
us,  both  strong  men,  to  go  out  and  fight  for  our 
country  ?  Why  then  should  you  so  hate  the  idea 
of  our  fighting  for  something  which,  in  a  situation 
such  as  this,  is  dearer  even  than  his  country  is 
to  a  man?" 

"I  hate  war  and  I  hate  this,"  she  replied 
fiercely.  "Every  woman  hates  war.  Every  wo- 
man would  hate  this,  who  was  not  infatuated  with 
her  own  conceit." 

"But  until  civilization,  like  the  Gospel,  has 
been  preached  to  all  the  world,  you  must  have 
war — the  war  of  aggression  from  those  who  are 
not  civilized  and  the  war  of  defence  from  those 
who  are.  Whole  nations  can  be  infatuated  with 
their  own  conceit  and  they  won't  hate  war." 

' '  But  surely  to  God ! ' '  she  cried, ' '  we  are  civilized ; 
you  and  Jonathan  and  I.  We — we  don't  want  to 
settle  this  by  brutal  methods  like  that ! " 

' '  You  admit  it  needs  settlement, ' '  he  said  quickly ; 
"you  admit  that  and  so  you  admit  the  truth  of 
what  I  said.  You  are  in  love,  and  only  some  form 


228  David  and  Jonathan 

of  settlement  will  show  you  the  right  of  one  of  us 
to  claim  you.  He's  the  one  you'll  love,  the  one 
who's  master — master  of  you  as  well  as  master  of 
the  situation  as  it  stands." 

"Yes — but  how — how  will  you  fight — just — 
just  with  your  fists — like — like  they  do  in  the 
prizefights?" 

He  could  not  help  laughing  at  her  feminine 
anxieties,  and  with  them  all,  the  still  more  feminine 
curiosity  that  lay  beneath.  But  she  caught  no 
infection  from  his  laughter,  and  when  he  suggested 
they  should  not  discuss  that  aspect  of  it,  with  a 
fierce  retaliation,  she  declared  they  must. 

"I  will  know — I  must  know!"  she  ex- 
claimed passionately.  ' '  What  are  you  going  to  do  ? 
Isn't  that  the  very  first  question  I  asked  you — 
what  are  you  going  to  do? " 

He  sat  silent,  refusing  to  answer  her,  and  then, 
with  a  sudden  impulse  of  fear,  she  seized  his  hand. 

"He'll  kill  you,  David,"  she  whispered,  and 
then  he  realized  how  well  she  must  have  learnt 
in  those  ten  days  of  his  sickness  the  depth  of 
Jonathan's  passion  for  her.  But  more  than  this 
he  realized,  which,  in  that  moment,  came  as  a 
sickness  of  fear  into  his  mind.  She  counted  upon 
the  certainty  of  Jonathan's  success.  If  for  an 


The  Approach  of  the  Inevitable     229 

instant  it  could  have  entered  her  thoughts,  she 
made  nothing  of  that  strength  of  will,  purpose, 
and  passion  which  David  had  reckoned  in  his 
favour.  She  knew  Jonathan  would  kill  him  in  his 
passion  to  win  her.  She  thought  he  had  not  the 
faintest  chance.  And  that  stung  him.  He  dropped 
her  hand  from  his. 

"Have  you  any  reason  to  be  as  certain  as  all 
that?"  said  he. 

She  looked  at  him,  and  in  her  eyes  was  not  merely 
a  fullness  of  pity,  but  that  expression,  though  she 
never  took  them  from  his  own,  as  if  she  were 
looking  him  up  and  down,  conveying  the  com- 
parison between  the  slightness  of  his  figure  and 
that  strength  of  the  brute  in  every  sinew  of 
Jonathan's  body.  But  he  would  not  take  that 
look  as  an  answer.  Undeterred  by  it,  he  asked 
his  question  again. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  you  don't  realize  it?"  she 
replied  softly,  as  though  he  were  a  child  and  she 
were  teaching  him  a  lesson  it  was  expedient  he 
should  know.  "David — that  leopard  the  other 
day.  He  killed  it  with  his  hands — with  his  hands 
— that  thing  which  had  no  thought  but  to  kill 
him,  and  with  weapons  in  its  talons  and  strength 
in  its  body  that  you — David — can't  you  see? 


230  David  and  Jonathan 

He  killed  it.  He's  as  strong  as  a  lion,  that  man. 
Haven't  you  seen  the  muscles  in  his  arms  as  he 
works.  And — and  there's  nothing  he  can't  do 
with  his  hands.  I  sometimes  think  it's  wonderful, 
all  the  things  he  can  do  and  the  pains  and  the 
care  he  takes  over  them.  One  of  these  days  he'll 
build  a  surf-boat  that'll  be  able  to  take  us  out  into 
the  track  of  steamers.  It  seems  utterly  impossible 
to  us  after  that  day  we  tried.  But  I  believe  he'll 
do  it.  Over  and  over  again  he  talked  about  it 
when  he  was  ill.  Said  it  might  take  him  two  or 
three  years,  but  he'd  do  it  in  the  end.  I  don't 
believe  there's  anything  he  couldn't  do.  And  what 
chance  have  you  got  against  a  man  like  that.  Oh 
— can't  you  see? — you  haven't  got  a  chance.  For 
God's  sake,  don't  fight,  David.  Think,  if  he  killed 
you  what  we  should  feel,  here  alone;  what  he'd 
feel  most  of  all,  because  he'd  killed  the  best  friend 
he  had  in  the  world." 

He  did  think,  indeed  had  long  ago  thought,  of  all 
of  these  things.  He  knew  the  odds  were  against 
him.  But  it  was  not  the  thought  uppermost  in 
his  mind  just  then.  Undeniably,  unmistakably, 
she  had  shown  him  the  trend  of  her  judgment, 
however  much  it  might  yet  be  hidden  in  uncer- 
tainty from  herself.  Jonathan  was  her  man  of 


The  Approach  of  the  Inevitable      231 

those  two  in  the  desolateness  of  that  life  of  theirs. 
Jonathan  was  the  man,  the  whole  tendency  of 
circumstances  was  leading  or  forcing  her  to  choose. 
If  Jonathan  indeed  killed  him,  then  instinctively 
he  knew  that  pity  for  him,  the  weaker  of  those 
two,  would  make  a  canker  in  her  life,  and  Jona- 
than's as  well.  Yet  still  it  was  Jonathan  her 
instinct,  if  not  her  heart,  was  set  upon. 

Suddenly  he  left  her  sitting  there  and  stood  to 
his  feet  with  a  thought  that  was  a  reckless  hope 
on  the  instant  in  his  mind.  If  he  were  victorious 
in  that  fight  of  theirs,  then  there  could  be  no 
pity  in  her  mind  for  Jonathan.  He,  whom  she 
had  supposed  the  weaker  of  body,  would  have 
triumphed  over  the  stronger.  If  that  could  be 
the  issue,  willingly  enough  then,  and  with  no  more 
than  a  passing  regret,  would  she  not  be  at  his  feet. 

It  was  a  hope  that  lasted  only  a  moment,  but 
long  enough  to  give  him  further  impetus  to  his 
purpose.  No  doubt  she  was  right,  and  in  all  she 
had  said,  she  had  shown  him  plainly  enough  the 
track  in  which  her  thoughts  must  run,  but  there 
was  that  vague  and  slender  chance  for  any  man  to 
cling  to.  With  all  the  fierce  bitterness  which  the 
revelation  of  her  mind  had  brought  him,  he 
fastened  his  hope  upon  it. 


232  David  and  Jonathan 

"Let's  get  back  to  the  beach,"  said  he.  "It's 
not  a  bit  of  good  sitting  on  here  and  talking. 
Supposing  he  did  kill  that  leopard  the  other  day, 
the  instincts  of  life  it  fought  with  are  governed  to 
a  certain  extent  by  fear.  There's  not  a  question 
of  fear  in  this.  I'm  not  afraid  of  losing  you.  I 
haven't  got  you  yet.  But,  my  God,  I'm  going 
to  have  a  damned  good  try." 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

MAN  TO  MAN 

T  HAVE  said  that  Joan  unwittingly  put  an  end 
to  the  conditions  of  affairs  as  it  had  then  de- 
veloped since  Jonathan's  illness  towards  its  crisis. 
She  put  an  end  to  it  by  no  other  means  than  this 
contrivance  of  hers  to  discuss  the  whole  matter  in 
confidence  with  David. 

The  satisfaction  of  his  parting  thrust  at  David's 
incompetency,  it  can  be  well  believed,  did  not  last 
Jonathan  for  long.  The  further  he  got  away 
from  the  creek,  the  more  he  fell  to  wondering  what 
they  were  doing;  what  advantage  David  was 
taking  of  his  opportunities;  to  what  extent  she 
was  being  swayed  by  those  attractions  of  David's 
mind  which  Jonathan  knew  must  be  greater  than 
his  own. 

In  that  uninterrupted  company  of  his  own 
thoughts,  I  can  conceive  jealousy  growing  at  a 
rapid  pace.  He  wasted  no  time  with  his  fishing- 

233 


234  David  and  Jonathan 

tackle  on  that  beach.  As  soon  as  he  had  caught 
sufficient  for  the  meal  she  had  asked  for,  he  re- 
turned, increasing  the  speed  of  his  journey  with 
the  spur  of  suspicion  the  nearer  he  came  to  home. 

With  the  first  sight  he  had  of  the  creek,  his  eyes 
were  swift  to  seek  them  out.  At  that  moment, 
far  from  expecting  him  back  so  soon,  they  were 
standing  by  the  Malaga's  boat.  She  had  followed 
David  down  the  steps  into  the  creek,  and,  using 
other  methods  than  pleading,  was  still  trying  to 
win  from  him  the  promise  she  needed.  Her  hand 
was  on  his  shoulder.  She  was  looking  up  earnestly 
into  his  face.  This  was  what  Jonathan  saw. 
Small  wonder  was  it  that  there  sped  across  his 
mind  the  memory  of  that  day  when,  after  the 
death  of  Sam,  he  had  seen  her  in  David's  arms. 

What  control  he  must  have  used  to  force  the 
casual  note  into  his  voice  as  he  shouted  out, 
"Hallo — there!  Here's  your  supper  for  you!" 
can  easily  be  imagined.  What  he  felt  when  he 
saw  their  surprise  and  observed  her  hand  being 
swiftly  withdrawn  from  David's  shoulder,  needs 
little  imagination  either. 

His  eyes  were  flaming  as  they  came  towards 
him,  and  Joan  must  have  known  in  that  moment 
there  was  little  hope  but  in  the  issue  as  David 


Man  to  Man  235 

had  drawn  it  for  her.  She  could  hear  every  effort 
of  restraint  in  his  voice.  There  was  no  mistaking, 
even  for  the  meanest  intelligence,  that  glitter  of 
emotion  in  his  eyes. 

That  night  at  supper  she  kept  up  with  amazing 
courage  this  farce  of  behaving  as  though  not  a 
thought  of  tragedy  were  hanging  over  them. 

For  the  amusement  and  distraction  of  their 
minds,  she  persuaded  them  to  play  a  game  of  chess. 
It  was  some  weeks  since  they  had  played,  and,  as 
though  in  some  sense  in  both  their  minds  it  was 
like  a  consulting  of  the  oracle,  they  consented  to 
her  persuasions.  In  David's  mind  at  least  was 
tlie  sure  understanding  of  why  she  stayed  with 
them  for  so  long  an  hour  after  her  usual  time. 

In  Jonathan  there  could  have  been  no  such 
comprehension  as  this,  yet  he  consented  to  play 
willingly  enough,  feeling  perhaps,  as  I  have  sug- 
gested, that  this  was  the  battle  in  miniature,  the 
foreshadowing  of  their  fate,  yet  having  no  super- 
stition about  it,  whichever  way  the  issue  might 
turn  out. 

It  was  a  long  game.  With  all  the  concentration 
he  possessed,  Jonathan  gave  his  mind  to  it,  but  he 
was  no  match  for  David's  intuitive  impulses  and 
clearer  vision  of  thought.  Again  and  again  he 


236  David  and  Jonathan 

violently  attacked,  and  after  each  onslaught  with 
the  most  powerful  pieces,  found  he  had  lost,  if 
not  in  men  then  in  position.  Gradually  and  in- 
evitably David  wore  him  down  to  sure  defeat. 
Jonathan  at  last  was  left  with  his  king,  knight, 
and  three  pawns;  David  with  king,  castle,  bishop, 
and  a  single  pawn. 

For  one  moment,  with  the  exchange  of  pieces 
forced  by  David  which  had  brought  this  situation 
about,  they  looked  up  from  the  board  into  each 
other's  eyes,  and  there  was  no  mistaking  the  quiet 
expression  of  triumph  in  David's  face. 

"Like  to  chuck  it  up  now?"  said  he,  using,  all 
unconsciously,  the  very  words  Jonathan  had  used 
to  him  those  days  long  ago  at  school  as  they  went 
out  to  their  fighting-ground  behind  the  chapel 
wall. 

"Chuck  it  up!"  Jonathan  exclaimed.  "Good 
God !  What  for  ?  I ' ve  got  three  pawns ! ' ' 

"Right  oh,"  said  David  amiably.  "Your 
move." 

But  from  that  moment,  as  even  Joan  could  see, 
who  knew  no  more  of  the  game  than  from  watch- 
ing them  play  it,  it  was  a  hopeless  and  one-sided 
business.  Step  by  step,  move  by  move,  David 
pressed  his  opponent  into  disadvantage.  One  by 


Man  to  Man  237 

one  his  pawns  were  taken,  yet,  even  when  he  was 
left  with  his  knight  alone,  he  almost  foolishly, 
and  certainly  with  obstinacy,  held  on.  To  any 
chess-player,  the  game  was  over.  He  played  on 
indeed  in  the  hope  that  Joan  would  go  to  bed  and 
not  be  present  to  witness  his  defeat. 

Once  he  looked  up,  asking  her  if  it  was  not  past 
her  time  for  clearing  off,  and  almost  thought  she 
must  be  sitting  there  to  watch  for  the  moment 
of  his  discomfiture.  He  did  not  know  she  had 
deeper  purpose  for  her  delay  than  that. 

At  last  David  made  a  queen  of  his  pawn,  and  in 
three  moves  the  game  was  ended. 

"Thanks,"  said  Jonathan,  and  said  no  more. 

It  was  beyond  the  power  of  her  invention  to 
find  excuse  for  staying  after  that,  and  slowly  Joan 
rose  to  her  feet.  They  returned  her  good-night, 
but  at  the  door,  as  she  went  out,  she  looked  back, 
saying,  "God  bless  you,"  with  the  old  suspicion 
of  a  catch  in  her  voice,  which  neither  of  them 
could  have  failed  to  notice.  It  was  as  though  she 
needed  in  her  thoughts  to  leave  that  sentiment 
behind  her  in  her  place,  standing  between  them 
throughout  the  night  until  she  could  keep  her 
watch  upon  them  once  more  in  the  morning. 

For  a  while  after  she  had  gone,  Jonathan  sat 


238  David  and  Jonathan 

there  doing  nothing,  while  David  in  silence  put 
away  the  chessmen.  Having  done  this,  he  was 
just  about  to  go  into  their  bedroom,  when  Jonathan 
spoke. 

' '  Do  you  remember  a  question  I  put  to  you  some 
time  ago?"  he  asked. 

For  a  moment  David  warded  off  the  inevitable. 

"What  question?"  he  asked. 

With  a  faint  sense  of  irritation,  Jonathan  re- 
minded him  and  David  admitted  a  clear  memory 
of  it. 

"Well — I  want  to  ask  it  again.  Are  you  in 
love  with  her  now  ? ' ' 

"I  didn't  deny  it  then,"  said  David  quietly. 

"And  you  admit  it  now?" 

"Certainly." 

"Well — so  am  I,"  said  Jonathan. 

"I'm  quite  aware  of  that,"  said  David. 

"Yes,  you  always  fancied  you  knew  what  was 
passing  in  people's  minds,"  Jonathan  exclaimed 
sarcastically. 

David  returned  from  the  bedroom  door  and 
sat  down  at  the  table. 

"Look  here,  Jonathan,"  be  began  slowly, 
"that's  the  second  time  today  you've  hit  at  me 
with  words." 


Man  to  Man  239 

"What  was  the  first?" 

"When  you  said  that  damned  bitter  thing  about 
my  being  merely  an  unskilled  labourer  with  no 
right  to  a  voice  in  what  it  amused  you  to  call 
our  board  of  directors.  That  was  the  first  time. 
That  hurt  more  than  this,  and  before  we  go  an 
inch  further  in  the  whole  of  this  business  I'm 
going  to  remind  you  that  we've  been  the  best  of 
friends  and  that  words  won't  settle  the  matter 
one  way  or  another.  What's  more,  you  know 
they  won't,  even  better  than  I.  And  it  seems  to 
me  that  words  like  that  are  dirty  things  between 
us  two,  so  let's  keep  'em  out.  If  anything  makes 
it  worth  while  to  keep  it  clean,  she  does." 

"Well,  you're  so  blastedly  superior  with  your 
subtleties  and  your  understanding,"  said  Jonathan 
hotly.  "It's  as  much  as  I  can  do  to  put  up 
with  it." 

"I  have  to  put  up  with  your  superiority  of 
ability,"  David  answered  him.  "You  may  not 
fling  it  in  my  face,  but  I  fling  nothing  in  yours. 
It's  how  we  see  each  other,  and  isn't  that,  or  what 
we  actually  are,  the  crux  of  the  whole  thing? " 

Jonathan  went  to  the  door  and  flung  it  open, 
as  though  the  atmosphere  in  that  room  were  suffo- 
cating him. 


240  David  and  Jonathan 

"I'm  in  no  fit  state  of  mind  to  argue  about  it," 
he  said  presently,  looking  round.  "You're  always 
ready  for  an  argument.  I  suppose  you  think 
you  could  argue  me  out  of  my  state  of  mind ;  just 
as  I  expect  you  fancied  winning  at  that  game  of 
chess  was  a  symbol  of  your  rights.  But,  if  you 
remember,  I  told  you  once  when  you  were  starting 
out  on  this  trip,  that  there  were  no  symbols  where 
you  were  going.  Gosh!  I  little  knew  how  true 
that  was  going  to  be.  That  game  of  chess  was 
no  symbol — ' 

"I  never  thought  it  was,"  interposed  David. 

"And  no  more,"  continued  Jonathan,  without 
listening  to  his  interruption — "And  no  more  will 
argument  settle  the  business  for  us  now.  You 
can't  talk  round  a  thing  like  this.  Talk!  Good 
God!  Talk  and  tears!  That's  a  woman's  job." 

David  rose  quickly  to  his  feet.  The  whole 
issue  hung  upon  a  thread  just  then,  and  had  not 
Joan's  blessing,  with  that  quaint  catch  in  her  voice, 
sounded  in  his  mind,  recalling  all  her  pleading 
for  that  promise  he  had  never  given,  he  must 
have  brought  it  to  its  crisis  then.  Even  Jonathan 
turned  to  the  look  in  his  eyes,  ready  for  the  blow, 
then  laughed  when  he  heard  it  was  still  to  be 
words. 


Man  to  Man  241 

"I've  said  all  that  a  little  while  ago,"  said 
David,  with  an  effort.  ' '  I've  said  that  words  won't 
settle  it.  Your  repetitions  only  add  more  words. 
I'm  merely  supposing  that  we're  not  just  animals 
with  nothing  more  than  appetites  to  gratify. 
We're  sufficiently  civilized  to  observe  a  few 
formalities.  You  asked  me  a  question  in  the  first 
instance.  I  presume  you  expected  it  to  be  an- 
swered with  words.  If  I'd  spat  in  your  face,  I 
suppose  you'd  have  considered  I'd  lost  some 
sense  of  the  fitness  of  things.  By  what  you  say, 
you  wouldn't;  but  I'm  not  taking  much  notice  of 
that." 

Jonathan  dropped  his  hand  from  the  door  and 
strode  with  three  steps  to  David's  side. 

' '  Look  here,  you're  not  going  to  talk  to  me  like 
that, "he  shouted,  "with  your  damned  superior 
intelligence!" 

David's  eyes  met  his  with  a  straightness  no 
man  could  have  utterly  ignored. 

"You'll  listen  to  every  word  I  have  to  say,"  he 
said  clearly,  "because  you  know  well  enough  I'm 
not  going  to  deny  you  your  chance  with  your 
fists.  I  shan't  cheat  you  of  that,  and  you  won't 
be  such  a  cad  as  to  cheat  me." 

One  long  moment  they  stayed  as  they  looked 


242  David  and  Jonathan 

into  each  other's  eyes,  and  then  Jonathan  sat 
down. 

"What  have  you  got  to  say?"  he  asked. 

David  closed  the  door  and  came  back  to  the 
table. 

"I  had  my  opportunity  today,"  he  began. 
"All  the  time  you've  been  away,  we've  been  talk- 
ing. I'm  not  going  to  tell  you  what  we  said. 
That's  my  affair.  I  can  claim  that  much.  But 
what  I  want  you  to  recognize  is  this.  It's  a 
damnable  position  for  her.  You  can't  think  she 
likes  it.  You  can  guess  well  enough  she  knows 
the  pass  we've  got  to.  There's  scarcely  a  woman 
is  a  fool  in  these  matters." 

"What  a  hell  of  a  lot  you  know  about  women ! " 
exclaimed  Jonathan  ironically,  and  David  laughed. 

"Not  so  much  as  you  do  about  fish,"  said  he. 
"Come  on,  don't  let's  get  childish  over  it.  That's 
the  case.  That's  what  I  want  to  say.  She  hates 
the  position  she's  in.  I  can  tell  you  that  much. 
Well — I've  had  my  chance  with  her,  and  I  can't 
alter  it.  Before  we  come  to  this" — he  shrugged 
his  shoulders  with  a  smile — ' '  settlement  of  it,  you 
take  your  chance.  I'll  go  down  to  the  beach 
tomorrow  and  leave  you  two  alone.  There  were 
no  restrictions  upon  me  when  you  went  this 


Man  to  Man  243 

morning.  I  don't  propose  any  restrictions  upon 
you.  You're  free  to  act  as  you  think  best,  and  if 
that  doesn't  settle  it,  then  anywhere  or  any  time 
you  like.  I  don't  care.  The  sooner  the  better. 
I  can't  stand  this  odour  of  hatred  between  us  any 
more  than  you  can.  Now,  you  needn't  worry 
yourself  any  more  about  my  damned  superiority. 
That's  all  the  talk  you'll  get  from  me." 

Jonathan  looked  at  him  across  the  table,  and 
I  can  almost  believe  he  felt  an  admiration  for 
David  then,  for  he  rose  to  his  feet  saying,  "All 
right — that  seems  fair,"  and  held  out  his  hand. 

For  an  instant  David  looked  at  it,  then  back 
into  Jonathan's  eyes. 

"I  don't  want  your  hand,"  said  he.  "You've 
got  your  chance,  and  it  can't  take  much  to  make 
you  believe  I  don't  love  you  for  it.  Let's  get  to 
bed." 


CHAPTER  XXV 

PUTTING  IT  TO  THE  TEST 

1 OAN  was  up  and  out  early  the  next  morning. 
^  When  David  heard  her  calling  outside  their 
window,  he  knew  well  what  apprehension  was  in 
her  mind. 

"Getting  up  now,"  he  called  back,  conscious 
that  it  was  his  voice  she  wanted  to  hear,  and  that 
only  because  she  feared  for  his  safety.  Still,  there 
was  his  voice,  and  he  gave  it  her,  smiling  to  himself 
as  he  heard  her  set  about  the  preparation  for  the 
breakfast  with  the  humming  of  a  song  of  gratitude 
in  her  throat. 

That  must  indeed  have  been  an  anxious 
night  for  her.  She  looked,  when  they  came  in 
to  breakfast,  as  though  she  had  never  closed 
her  eyes  for  one  minute  of  it.  But  with  the 
reaction  from  her  fears,  once  she  had  looked 
from  one  to  the  other,  her  spirits  were  high. 
She  talked  incessantly  and  laughed  as  she  had 

244 


Putting  it  to  the  Test  245 

done  in  the  best  of  the  times  since  they  had  all 
been  together. 

David,  perhaps,  was  the  least  cheerful  of  the 
three  of  them.  Before  Jonathan  were  the  hopes 
and  prospects  of  that  day  with  her  alone.  Her 
spirits,  as  has  been  said,  were  reactionary.  But 
as  for  David,  his  own  words  best  describe  the 
mood  which  hung  about  him. 

"I  was  leaving  them  alone  all  that  day,"  he 
says,  "and  poor  though  my  chances  may  have 
been  in  a  fight  with  Jonathan,  I  was  in  that  frame 
of  mind  to  believe  they  were  poorer  still  with  her. 
She  was  in  love  with  neither  of  us.  I  had  told  her 
that  the  day  before.  But  she  was  in  love  with 
love.  Yet  I  knew  well  enough  that  if  it  were 
possible  for  either  one  or  the  other  of  us  to  shape 
ourselves  into  the  expression  of  her  emotions,  it 
would  be  Jonathan .  She  believed  Jonathan  would 
kill  me,  and  that  because,  in  her  deepest  convic- 
tion, she  knew  he  could.  Her  dread  of  it  was 
only  by  reason  of  her  feminine  hatred  of  the 
brutality  of  force.  In  a  word  then,  though  she 
might  not  know  it  in  the  surface  consciousness  of 
her  mind,  I  was  convinced  that  it  was  Jonathan 
she  loved.  The  enthusiasm  of  her  admiration 


246  David  and  Jonathan 

for  his  powers  of  contributing  to  the  necessities 
of  our  life  there,  no  less  than  the  protecting  value 
of  his  strength  as  evidenced  by  his  victory  over  the 
leopard,  these  were  the  proofs  she  gave  me.  It 
seemed  I  could  not  in  reason  ask  for  any  more. 
And  to  all  the  contemplative  functions  of  my  mind 
—as  merciless  as  any  cross-examining  barrister  in 
a  court  of  law — I  was  to  be  left  alone  for  the  rest 
of  that  day." 

No  words  of  mine  could  better  describe  this 
mood  in  which  David  found  himself  that  morning. 
If  further  conviction  of  his  beliefs  had  been  neces- 
sary, he  heard  it  in  the  unregretful  way  in  which 
she  accepted  his  announcement  that  he  was  going 
down  to  the  beach. 

' '  I  believe  my  little  sermon  on  idleness  has  done 
some  good,"  she  said,  with  a  laugh.  It  did  not 
enter  his  thoughts  she  might  be  glad  of  every 
moment  when  those  two  were  apart. 

So  he  went,  without  a  word  of  good-bye  to 
either  of  them,  taking  the  fishing-tackle  to  make 
excusable  his  reason  for  going,  and  never  once 
looking  back  to  see  them  standing  there  on  the 
other  side  of  the  palisade. 

He  took  his  time  in  going.  All  the  jealousy 
he  had  suffered,  he  says,  seemed  to  have  been 


Putting  it  to  the  Test  247 

blunted  of  its  edge  then.  The  choice  was  not 
with  her.  He  still  believed  she  would  not  choose. 
But  her  convictions  were  his  convictions.  In  those 
hours  when  he  was  working  the  canoe  down  the 
creek  he  believed  but  little  in  his  chance.  Already 
she  loved  the  man  she  knew  must  win,  but  could 
not  bring  her  mind  to  realize  it,  until  the  test  had 
proved  it  to  the  hilt.  It  was  the  test  that  mattered, 
as  he  had  always  known  it  did,  and  in  those  hours, 
going  down  to  the  beach,  he  had  somehow  lost 
faith  in  his  fate.  It  was  Joan  who  had  robbed 
him  of  it.  He  could  not  argue  then  that  expediency 
was  the  dictator  of  her  heart.  By  all  the  laws 
of  average  and  comparison,  he  knew  as  well  as 
she  that  Jonathan  was  the  master  of  that  situa- 
tion. In  the  depression  which  had  fallen  upon 
him,  he  could  see  little  beside. 

He  conveys  a  depth  of  despondency  in  his 
description  of  that  lonely  journey  down  to  the 
beach,  which,  natural  though  it  may  have  been, 
scarcely  does  him  justice. 

"For  all  I  might  have  argued  with  her,"  he 
says,  "that  inferred  declaration  of  her  choice  did 
make  a  difference  to  me.  It  took  the  heart  out 
of  me.  I  had  no  more  fear  about  my  meeting 


248  David  and  Jonathan 

with  Jonathan.  But  I  had  less  hope,  because  it 
seemed  I  had  less  right;  less  right  of  challenge 
because  of  my  little  hope  of  success.  As  I  look 
back  on  it  now,  it  seems  the  more  amazing  how 
completely  obsessed  I  had  become  by  the  virtue 
of  physical  force  in  that  contingency. 

"  So  I  was  weighed  down  in  spirit,"  he  continues, 
"until,  as  I  drove  the  canoe  out  of  those  tall  sea- 
grasses  that  separated  the  forest  from  the  beach 
and  came  into  the  open  channel,  my  eyes  were 
fixed  with  the  sight  of  something  which  for  the 
moment  washed  every  other  thought  out  of  my 
mind.  About  a  couple  of  miles  out  there  lay 
a  British  gunboat,  flying  that  flag  it  seemed  I 
had  not  seen  for  a  whole  lifetime. 

"How  can  I  describe  my  first  sensations?  For 
even  the  necessity  of  signalling  to  her  had  no 
cause  to  occupy  my  thoughts.  I  could  see  a  boat 
putting  off  from  her  side,  the  glitter  of  the  line 
of  oars  in  the  sunshine  as  they  dipped  in  and 
out  of  the  water,  the  white  figures  of  British  blue- 
jackets bending  to  them  as  they  rowed.  There 
was  nothing  to  do  then  but  wait  for  them,  and 
words  almost  fail  me  to  describe  what  I  felt. 

"The  thought  I  imagine  which  seized  upon  me 
first  of  all,  seeing  how  near  it  was  to  my  mind,  was 


Putting  it  to  the  Test  249 

that  this  .was  the  solution  to  all  our  difficulties. 
Swift  upon  that  came  the  return  of  those  sensa- 
tions I  had  had  when  we  had  made  our  attempt 
at  escape  through  the  forest  and  Jonathan  had 
talked  in  hours  of  the  moment  of  our  release. 
Then  I  had  felt  that  my  chance,  in  the  normal  sur- 
roundings of  civilization,  would  be  triumphantly 
established.  So  I  felt  then,  seeing  that  gunboat 
lying  out  there;  watching  those  oars  glittering  and 
vanishing,  glittering  and  vanishing  in  the  sunshine. 
Fate,  luck,  whatever  it  was,  had  turned  the 
balance  of  events  richly  in  my  favour.  For 
Jonathan,  once  he  was  released,  would  inevitably 
return  to  his  roving  habits  once  more.  The  op- 
portunities would  all  be  mine,  and  the  prospect 
of  wooing  her,  as  I  knew  I  could,  was  one  which 
thrilled  me  in  the  joy  of  its  promise. 

"  I  see  no  reason  to  deny  that  these  were  my  first 
sensations.  The  Lord  knows  they  were  human 
enough.  But  then,  there  fell  upon  my  mind  the 
pledge  I  had  given  to  Jonathan  that  he  should 
have  his  chance  of  the  day  alone  with  her.  In 
addition  to  that  there  was  his  still  greater  chance 
in  the  test  which,  only  a  few  moments  before,  had 
seemed  the  inevitable  outcome  of  the  whole  affair. 
And  here,  a  stroke  of  luck  had  robbed  him  of  it. 


250  David  and  Jonathan 

In  civilized  environments  again,  it  was  ridiculous  to 
suppose  it  could  be  settled  that  way.  In  civilized 
environments,  the  choice  again  would  be  with 
her.  The  whole  rights  of  custom  gave  it  to  her, 
and  in  what  light  would  she  regard  Jonathan  then  ? 
How  would  his  qualities,  so  much  in  evidence  in 
that  creek,  show  to  advantage  in  a  London  draw- 
ing-room? Last  of  all,  if  I  had  only  the  evening 
before  to  convince  me,  I  knew  that  Jonathan  was 
hit  just  as  hard  as  I,  and,  but  for  this  trick  of  for- 
tune turning  up  on  the  board  of  chance,  would  have 
won  her.  Irrevocably  she  would  have  been  his. 

"  So  came  that  second  phase  of  my  sensations,  as 
the  little  boat  came  dancing  over  the  blue  waters 
towards  the  edge  of  the  surf.  The  tide  was  low. 
With  all  those  sailors  manning  her,  I  knew  she 
could  be  beached  somehow  or  other,  and  that  she 
could  be  launched  again,  no  matter  what  sort  of  a 
drenching  we  got  from  the  breaking  waves. 

"  These  second  thoughts  were  the  hardest  of  all 
to  argue  with.  Certainly  the  fortune  was  not  of 
my  seeking,  glad  though  I  may  have  been  it  had 
come  our  way.  But,  had  it  been  in  my  power, 
would  I  have  chosen  it?  That  was  a  tricksy 
question.  I  tried  to  put  it  to  myself  as  straight 
as  I  could.  Would  I  have  taken  the  chance  of 


Putting  it  to  the  Test  251 

solving  our  problem,  the  odds  of  which  were  accu- 
mulated heavily  against  me,  by  such  easy  means 
as  these?  Without  any  false  sentiment  about  it, 
would  I  have  slipped  out  of  the  prospect  of  that 
fight  had  it  been  in  the  power  of  my  will  to  avoid 
it?  I  had  to  admit  this  much.  I  had  to  admit 
that  I  should  have  despised  myself  for  ever  if  I 
had. 

"  Yet  how  could  this  be  helped?  It  was  not  of 
my  seeking.  The  turn  of  the  dice  had  come  my 
way.  Obviously  it  would  be  insane  to  refuse  that 
opportunity  of  escape.  I  must  break  into  the  pro- 
mise I  had  given  Jonathan  that  he  should  be  alone 
with  her  all  that  day.  I  must  snatch  from  him 
his  overwhelming  chances  to  beat  me  in  a  fair 
fight.  I  had  accepted  that  fight.  In  refusing  to 
shake  hands  with  him  the  night  before,  I  had 
proudly  accepted  it,  asking  for  nothing  but  hatred 
and  enmity  between  us  both. 

"  Now  the  ship's  boat  had  reached  the  surf,  and 
they  were  gallantly  struggling  with  the  wash  of 
the  tumbling  waves.  I  stood  there  watching  her. 
They  had  seen  me  now.  But  none  of  my  thoughts 
were  with  their  efforts.  I  knew  they  would  come 
in  safe  enough.  I  knew  they  would  get  back  again 
to  the  ship.  All  those  moments,  as  they  came 


252  David  and  Jonathan 

sweeping  in  towards  the  shore,  I  was  wrestling 
with  a  new  thought  which,  like  a  bolt  out  of  that 
blue  above  me,  had  pierced  into  my  mind. 

"  Supposing  I  went  alone,  leaving  them  to  the 
unhampered  decision  of  Fate  ?  It  was  an  honest 
way  out  of  it.  In  some  respects  it  was  better  for 
Jonathan,  since  he  would  not  have  been  responsible 
for  my  elimination  from  the  tangle  of  it  all.  Then 
indeed,  and  doubtless  in  a  mighty  short  time,  she 
would  know  if  she  really  loved  him.  In  just  as 
short  a  time,  giving  advice  at  the  first  port  we 
stopped  at,  I  could  have  chartered  a  boat  to  go  and 
take  them  off. 

"  Whatever  the  result,  would  not  that  be  a  clean 
decision  of  the  issue  as  Fate  had  begun  it,  as 
Fate  would  have  determined  it  too,  without  the 
intervention  of  this  stroke  of  luck?  The  more  I 
thought  about  it,  the  more  I  came  to  the  honest 
belief  it  was  so.  In  the  environment  in  which 
that  problem  had  been  set,  there,  by  every  right 
of  the  law  of  sequence,  it  should  be  solved.  It 
was  with  the  deepest  reluctance  I  came  to  that 
decision,  yet  there  appeared  to  me  no  other  alter- 
native. It  was  not  as  if  I  were  deserting  them; 
indeed  it  was  merely  as  though,  in  an  effort  to 
secure  their  release,  I  was  setting  out,  only  for  a 


Putting  it  to  the  Test  253 

week  or  so,  indeed  for  less,  and  that  with  the  cer- 
tain prospect  of  success. 

"By  the  time  the  boat  had  come  near  enough 
for  me  to  wade  in  and  give  a  hand,  my  mind  was 
made  up  to  it.  Without  the  sense  that  one  has 
acted  honestly  in  the  light  of  one's  own  principles, 
the  greatest  passion  has  a  taste  about  it  that  can 
be  evil  in  the  mind.  I  was  giving  Jonathan  his 
chance,  as  I  made  no  doubt  he  would  have  given 
me  mine  if  he  had  found  me  at  a  disadvantage  in 
our  fight.  And  God  knows,  I  should  have  been 
at  many  before  we  reached  the  inevitable  end. 

"  If  any  man,  ever  reading  this,  can  say  my  de- 
cision was  not  fair,  it  must  be  an  assumption  based 
upon  the  logical  sequences  of  his  mind  to  which 
by  temperament  mine  could  not  subscribe. 

"  As  the  boat  came  in  and  I  felt  the  touch  of  her, 
felt  also  the  grip  of  the  officer's  hand  in  mine,  I 
reckoned  the  decision  I  had  brought  myself  to 
was  not  wholly  without  its  compensations. 

"  'My  God!  You've  had  a  thick  time  of  it,' 
he  said.  'How  long  have  you  been  here?' 

"  I  shook  my  head.  I  did  not  know,  and  besides 
that,  I  felt  too  excited,  emotional  too,  perhaps,  to 
be  able  to  speak. 

'"What  ship  was  it?' 


254  David  and  Jonathan 

"  'The  Malaga, '  I  managed  to  stammer  out. 

'"Lord!  That's  what  we  thought.  Getting 
on  eight  months.' 

' ' '  Eight  months ! '  I  muttered.  I  could  not  be 
sure  in  my  mind  whether  it  seemed  short  or  a 
lifetime. 

' ' '  Do  you  mean  to  say  you've  been  here  all  alone 
— no  others?' 

"  I  shook  my  head.    I  could  not  trust  my  voice. 

' '  '  Where  have  you  lived  ? ' 
'Up  there  in  the  forest.' 

"  'Made  that  canoe  yourself?' 

"  'Yes.' 

"  I  felt  justified  in  that  lie. 

"  'Have  you  got  any  things  you  want  to  bring? ' 

"  I  laughed  quickly,  asking  him  what  sort  of 
things  he  imagined  I  could  have  collected  in  that 
deserted  spot. 

"  'Well,  this'll  make  a  fine  tale  when  you  get 
home,'  said  he;  'you'll  be  the  modern  Robinson 
Crusoe.' 

"He  little  thought  what  sort  of  a  tale  it  was,  and 
how,  not  more  than  a  few  miles  away,  it  was  going 
on,  in  the  most  crucial  moments  of  its  develop- 
ment, even  as  we  stood  there. 

"  He  explained  how  they  had  been  cruising  in 


Putting  it  to  the  Test  255 

near  shore,  on  the  lookout  for  water,  and,  having 
got  it,  about  six  miles  farther  down  the  coast, 
were  sheering  out  to  sea  again  when  they  saw  the 
signal  on  the  top  of  the  cliff.  In  all  that  con- 
versation I  felt  it  a  terrific  strain  to  keep  to  the 
singular  of  the  personal  pronoun,  saying  'I,'  not 
'we' — 'mine,'  not  'ours,'  and  the  fact  that  Jona- 
than had  been  responsible  for  most  of  the  con- 
veniences of  our  life  there,  made  it  all  the  harder. 

"  I  took  refuge  in  saying  as  little  as  I  could,  and 
doubtless  my  silence  seemed  natural  enough  to 
him.  According  to  the  tale  I  had  pitched,  I  had 
not  had  a  soul  to  talk  to  for  nearly  eight  months. 

"  I  was  given  a  change  of  clothing  as  soon  as  we 
got  aboard.  I  was  provided  with  the  means  to 
shave  my  beard  and  feel  myself  again.  I  think 
that  sensation  was  the  strangest  and  most  gratify- 
ing of  all.  And  the  first  meal  they  gave  me  of 
English  food,  cooked  in  the  English  way — my 
heavens!  That  was  good.  The  officers  sat  and 
watched  me  wolf  it  down,  while  I  kept  telling 
them  they  did  not  know  what  a  damned  fine 
life  they  had  of  it. 

"  The  officer  in  command  sent  for  me  as  soon  as 
I  had  got  through  these  preliminaries.  It  was  a 
British  gunboat,  and  there  was  a  certain  amount 


256  David  and  Jonathan 

of  formality  about  all  these  proceedings  which 
only  made  me  laugh  inside  myself.  It  was  coming 
back  to  civilization  with  such  a  rush,  like  blood 
flowing  back  to  its  unaccustomed  channels,  that 
it  almost  hurt,  it  seemed  so  foolish  just  then. 

"  Once  we  were  alone  together,  that  sort  of  non- 
sense all  disappeared,  especially  under  the  influence 
of  the  fact  of  our  discovering  that  we  had  mutual 
friends  at  home,  and  he  had  often  heard  about  me. 
Then  we  both  remarked  how  small  a  place  the  world 
was,  and  with  a  jerk  I  realized  how  easy  it  was  to 
drift  back  into  the  commonplace  and  conventional 
remarks  that  go  to  make  civilized  conversation. 

"  I  sat  and  talked  with  him  for  an  hour  or  more, 
when  at  one  point  of  the  conversation,  which  had 
become  as  natural  as  that  between  old  friends,  he 
said:  'How  did  you  manage  for  water?' 

"  '  Oh — we  found  that  easily  enough,'  said  I,  and 
then  I  saw  my  pitfall,  but  only  when  I  had  fallen 
in. 

"  'We?'  said  he.     'I  thought  you  were  alone?' 

"There  was  one  second  when  I  asked  myself 
was  it  too  late  to  excuse  it.  The  next,  I  knew  by 
his  eye  it  was.  Having  arrived  at  that  decision, 
I  told  him  the  truth,  and  thank  God,  when  I  had 
finished  explaining  to  him  my  motives,  he  got  up 


Putting  it  to  the  Test  257 

from  the  table  in  his  saloon,  and  he  stalked  to  the 
port-hole,  standing  a  full  moment  and  looking 
out;  then  turning  round  to  me  and  saying: 

' ' '  Well— I  call  that  damned  quixotic !  The  luck 
had  come  your  way  without  asking  for  it.  Why 
the  devil  didn't  you  take  it?' 

"  I  drew  a  deep  breath  of  relief.  I  asked  for  no 
better  justification  than  that.  He  drove  the  fear 
of  God  into  me,  however,  when  he  continued  say- 
ing that  by  rights  he  supposed  he  ought  to  go 
back  straight  away. 

"  'For  the  Lord's  sake  don't  do  that!'  I  begged 
him.  '  I  can  charter  some  sort  of  a  craft  at  Tene- 
riffe  and  you've  got  the  exact  latitude  and  longi- 
tude. They  can't  fail  to  be  found.' 

"  'Oh,  they'll  be  found  right  enough/  he  replied, 
'  there's  no  fear  of  that.'  And  then,  reluctantly,  he 
consented  to  go  ahead.  They  expected  to  reach 
Teneriff  e  next  morning,  so  the  concession  he  made 
was  not  such  a  great  one  after  all.  I  think,  in  fact, 
it  was  just  official  pride  in  his  power  to  interfere 
with  my  plans  which  made  him  suggest  it." 

"During  those  three  days,  I  composed  a  letter 
to  Joan,  intending  it  to  be  delivered  to  her  by  the 

rescue  party  in  whatever  ship  I  could  arrange  to  go. 
17 


258  David  and  Jonathan 

"This  is  the  letter.  I  have  no  compunction  in 
transcribing  it  here.  She  might,  if  she  wished, 
have  shown  it  to  the  whole  world. 

11  'My  dear, '  I  wrote, 

"*/  am  sure  you  have  wondered  much  and  thought 
often,  perhaps,  that  I  shirked  at  the  last  moment  that 
issue  which  was  to  have  decided  so  much  in  my  life, 
if  not,  perhaps,  in  yours.  You  will  realize  by  now 
that  I  have  not  just  merely  slipped  out  of  it,  but  have 
intended  rather  to  leave  it  all  to  the  unaltered  con- 
ditions of  that  same  Fate  which  brought  us  all  together, 
and  threatened  so  nearly  to  divide  us  in  the  end. 

'"I  had  had  all  and  more  than  all  my  chances 
with  you .  I  am  given  to  talking  my  mind.  Jonathan 
is  not.  And  I  had  had  many  opportunities,  yet 
had  not  won  you.  In  these  few  days,  therefore,  while 
you  have  been  alone  with  him,  and  he  has,  no  doubt, 
said  what  is  in  his  heart,  you  will  have  been  free  to 
learn  much  of  what  I  have  strongly  suspected  was  in 
your  heart  all  the  time,  though  you  could  not  know  it. 

'"Do  you  remember  saying  God's  blessing  to  us 
that  night  before  I  went  away  ?  Well — here  I  repeat 
it  to  you,  knowing  that  unless  you  want  me  you  will 
not  send  for  me  or  write  to  me  again. 

'"David.1" 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

THE  TEST  ITSELF 

* 

'"PHIS  brings  me  to  the  end  of  David's  manu- 
*  script.  So  much  he  must  have  written  im- 
mediately on  his  return  to  England,  while  the 
whole  affair  was  fresh  and  vivid  in  his  memory. 
There  is  certainly  no  smell  of  the  lamp  about  it. 
He  wrote  just  as  he  felt,  and  probably  completed 
the  whole  account  in  less  than  a  month.  Reading 
it  through,  as  carefully  as  I  have  done,  it  gives 
me  that  impression ;  as  if  he  needed  to  occupy  his 
mind,  though  not  to  distract  it,  from  the  sense  of 
loss  which  he  conveys  in  that  last  letter  to  Joan. 

It  becomes,  accordingly,  no  easy  task  for  me 
to  complete  the  story,  drawing  certainly  upon  my 
imagination  in  no  little  degree,  but  with  that 
margin  of  knowledge  which  I  possess  from  the 
things  I  have  heard,  little  remarks  of  David's 
and  actual  inquiries  I  have  made  since  I  deter- 
mined to  give  the  tale  in  this  form  to  the  public. 

359 


26o  David  and  Jonathan 

The  accuracy  of  my  account  of  what  happened 
in  the  creek  after  David's  departure,  naturally 
I  cannot  vouch  for;  though  I  profess  no  slight 
pretension  to  its  authenticity  by  reason  of  cir- 
cumstances which  will  be  divulged  later. 

Jonathan,  it  seems,  made  no  bones  about  admit- 
ting the  fact  that  it  was  by  David's  suggestion 
they  were  left  alone  that  day.  It  probably  helped 
him  in  breaking  down  that  reserve  he  felt  in 
speaking  to  her  on  any  other  than  the  most 
ordinary  topics. 

In  a  stilted  but  honest  and  genuine  fashion  he 
told  her  that  he  loved  her,  to  which  Joan  listened, 
never  answering  by  so  much  as  a  touch  of  the 
hand,  and  employing  far  more  restraint  than  ever 
she  had  shown  with  David. 

He  seems  to  have  taken  that  silence  in  the  light 
of  submission.  Somewhere  in  the  early  part  of 
his  script  David  says:  "Jonathan  believed  all 
women  to  be  intensely  clever  until  the  moment 
of  surrender,  and  that  then  they  became  creatures 
of  devouring  emotion,  externally  passive,  but 
inwardly  making  such  demands  upon  a  man  as, 
unless  his  passion  for  them  absorbed  all  his 
interests  in  life,  made  a  slave  of  him  before  he 
knew  where  he  was." 


The  Test  Itself  261 

This,  without  doubt,  is  a  clue  to  all  his  actions 
from  that  moment  when  he  found  himself  alone 
with  her  at  the  creek,  and  after  David's  disappear- 
ance. This  silence  and  restraint  he  must  have 
taken  as  the  expression  of  that  passivity  in  a 
woman  which,  according  to  his  view  of  the  sex, 
was  indicative  of  her  surrender.  Some  such  men- 
tal process  it  certainly  was,  for,  quickened  with 
the  passion  he  felt  himself,  he  acted,  and  before 
he  was  sure.  Suddenly  he  put  his  arms  about  her, 
and  in  the  contact  of  her  body  with  his  own,  was, 
for  the  moment,  lost  to  everything  but  the  whirl- 
wind of  his  emotions. 

Easily  it  can  be  imagined  she  was  startled, 
numbed  even,  in  her  surprise.  More  easily  still 
can  it  be  realized,  she  was  powerless  to  move  in 
those  arms  of  his.  And  there  for  a  moment  she 
lay,  while  he  spent  his  kisses  on  her  face  and  neck. 

It  must  be  remembered  David  had  put  no 
restraint  upon  him.  He  had  told  him  of  no  one 
word  they  had  said  while  they  were  alone  together 
the  day  before. 

"You  are  free  to  act  as  you  think  best,  and,  if 
that  doesn't  settle  it,  then  anywhere  or  any  time 
you  like.  I  don't  care." 

And  this  had  been  the  best,  indeed,  the  only 


262  David  and  Jonathan 

way  of  acting,  as  Jonathan  had  conceived  it.  A 
moment  later,  he  set  her  free  and,  breathless,  she 
pushed  the  hair  from  off  her  forehead,  staring  in 
front  of  her  and  saying  no  word  at  all,  much  as 
they  say  an  animal  stares  into  the  hypnotic  eyes 
of  the  boa  constrictor  when  she  has  chosen  her 
prey. 

It  was  circumstance,  however,  she  was  gazing 
at,  not  at  Jonathan.  Not  one  word  of  reproof 
did  she  utter,  but  slowly,  after  a  moment,  she 
rose  to  her  feet. 

All  the  time  he  had  watched  her,  groping  with 
his  mind  to  reach  hers.  Now,  in  this  silence,  he 
found  himself  hopelessly  in  the  confusion  of  an 
utter  darkness. 

He  did  not  know  whether  he  had  offended  her 
or  not.  On  that  impulse  of  doubt  he  over- 
whelmed her  with  his  apologies. 

"You're  not  hurt — you're  not  offended,  are 
you?"  he  cried.  "I  love  you.  I  told  you  that. 
Can  I  help  what  I  feel  ?  Good  God !  I'm  sorry  if 
I've  offended  you.  I  wouldn't  do  that  for  the 
world.  I  thought  from  the  way  you  listened, 
saying  nothing — that  you  understood,  would 
know  I  must  be  longing — to  have  you  in  my  arms. 
Joan — are  you  offended  ? ' ' 


The  Test  Itself  263 

She  turned  and  faced  him,  pleading  there  like  a 
child  in  his  remorse  for  what  he  had  done,  and  it 
must  have  been  inevitable  in  her  mind  to  make 
comparison  between  him  and  David  then.  All  of 
a  sudden,  he  was  as  Samson,  shorn  of  his  locks. 
So  it  seemed  to  her,  with  full  intent,  must  Delilah 
have  stolen  the  secret  of  that  man  of  strength. 
In  that  moment  she  knew  she  could  tell  him  to  do 
for  her  whatever  she  wished  and  he  would  straight- 
way have  done  it. 

But  more  profoundly  than  this,  it  was  never 
he  whom  she  looked  at.  Even  when  he  began  to 
realize  the  possibility  that  he  had  mistaken  her 
from  the  beginning,  asking  her  whether  it  were 
David  she  cared  for  most,  and  she  answered: 
"Don't  you  realize  I  have  no  choice?"  it  was 
circumstance  she  was  answering,  not  he. 

"David's  been  telling  you  that  sort  of  nonsense 
as  well,  has  he? "  he  replied.  "He  said  that  to  me 
last  night — that  you  had  no  choice — but  it's  all 
rot.  However,  he  likes  to  think  he  understands 
women,  and  if  you  wish  to  agree  with  it,  I  can't 
help  that.  But  it's  futile  to  me.  You've  only  to 
lift  your  little  finger  and  I'd " 

She  stopped  him  quickly. 

"You'd  give  me  David?"  said  she. 


264  David  and  Jonathan 

At  the  mere  sound  of  David's  name  on  her 
lips,  all  expression  of  apology  vanished  from  his 
face. 

"No,"  said  he.  "Do  you  imagine  I  would? 
Do  you  think  I  could  go  on  calmly  here,  you  two 
living  together,  and  I  labouring,  slave  to  both  of 
you  and  your  happiness  ?  Is  that  the  way  out  of 
it  which  David  suggested?  If  it  is,  it's  not  sur- 
prising that  he  failed." 

"David  didn't  suggest  anything  of  the  kind," 
she  replied.  "He  knew  you  would  neither  of  you 
consent  to  that.  There  was  only  one  alternative 
that  he  could  see." 

"What  was  that?" 

"That  you  must  fight." 

Jonathan  nodded  his  head.  Obviously  over 
that  matter  there  was  nothing  to  be  said.  It  was 
all  to  do. 

"Would  you  suppose  from  that,  then,"  she 
suggested,  "  that  it  leaves  me  with  much  choice  ?" 

His  silence  was  his  answer. 

"So  David  was  right  after  all? "  she  persisted. 

He  waited  a  moment,  smarting  under  a  sense  of 
impotence. 

"Oh,  I  suppose  David's  always  right,"  he  said 
at  length.  "At  every  turn  I  come  up  against 


The  Test  Itself  265 

that  superior  intelligence  of  his — but  I  doubt 
whether  the  circumstances  call  for  it  here." 

My  imagination  may  be  all  at  fault,  but  it 
seems  to  me  then  she  must  have  felt  the  existence 
of  that  superior  intelligence  dominating  the  situa- 
tion, even  with  David  miles  away.  We  are  now 
looking  at  this  story,  unbiassed  by  David's  point 
of  view  of  it,  and  in  all  the  facts  of  information 
I  have  collected  I  find  how  true  the  judgment 
must  have  been  that  she  was  in  love  with  neither 
of  them.  From  the  moment,  however,  when 
Jonathan  gave  way  to  the  impulse  of  his  emotion, 
that  must  have  made  a  turning-point  in  her  mind, 
however  it  may  have  been  hidden  from  her  con- 
sciousness by  the  omnipresent  facts  of  circum- 
stance. 

She  began  at  this  juncture  to  examine  Jonathan 
as  to  his  point  of  view  upon  his  friendship  with 
David ;  what  they  had  felt  for  each  other  before 
ever  that  voyage  on  the  Malaga  had  been  under- 
taken; how  their  friendship  had  withstood  the 
test  of  close  companionship  before  she  had  arrived 
on  the  Malaga's  boat. 

"And  how  soon,"  she  asked  him,  "did  you  be- 
gin to  know  that  something  was  coming  between 
that  friendship  which  had  lasted  all  those  years?" 


266  David  and  Jonathan 

"Oh — I  don't  know,"  said  he.  "I  suppose 
David  recognized  it  first.  There's  no  need  my 
saying  he's  more  impulsive  than  I  am." 

"I  think  we  could  argue  about  that,"  she 
replied.  "He's  longer-sighted — that's  what  it 
seems  to  me.  I  don't  think  you  can  deny  that 
you're  impulsive." 

After  what  had  just  happened,  he  could  say  no- 
thing to  that.  Still  he  tried  to  defend  his  point. 

"You  can  call  it  long-sightedness  in  him  if  you 
like,"  he  replied,  "but  he  couldn't  have  seen  so 
far  as  this  when  he  was  carrying  you  up  the  saloon 
companion-way  on  the  Malaga,  and  admits — as 
he  did  to  me  when  you  were  lying  on  the  beach 
unconscious — that  he  felt  a  sort  of  emotion  about 
you  then." 

"On  the  Malaga,"  she  demanded,  "on  the 
Malaga — when  did  he  do  that?" 

He  told  her  then  what  he  imagined  David 
must  have  told  her  long  before. 

"Fancy  his  never  telling  me,"  she  murmured 
when  he  had  finished,  and  leaving  Jonathan  wish- 
ing to  heaven  he  had  never  mentioned  it.  For 
now  it  seemed  to  him  he  was  coming  to  learn,  as 
David  thought  he  himself  had  learnt,  the  direction 
of  her  choice. 


The  Test  Itself  267 

So,  as  an  outsider,  it  appears  to  me  they  were 
both  bound  to  believe  in  each  other's  chances  with 
her,  while  swayed  first  from  one  and  then  from 
the  other,  always  in  reverse  to  the  one  she  was 
with,  I  conceive  she  would  have  remained  in 
doubt.  Each,  in  his  absence,  seemed  to  dominate 
the  situation  in  her  mind.  When  David  was  not 
there  she  felt  his  thought  permeating  everything 
that  happened;  when  Jonathan  was  not  there 
she  was  conscious  of  his  physical  abilities  and 
strength  asserting  their  predominance  over  the 
situation. 

It  may  be  thought  she  was  an  opportunist.  It 
must  be  wondered  what  woman  is  not.  Does  not 
the  whole  of  her  training  and  experience  induce 
her  to  this  ?  Until  Civilization  has  won  for  her  the 
independence  she  desires,  will  she  not  remain  so? 
An  opportunist  handicapped  by  emotion. 

The  test  was  needed,  as  David  had  said,  to 
prove  to  her  which  was  master  of  their  destinies, 
and  automatically,  without  any  of  the  fears  she 
had  entertained,  that  test  was  applied.  When 
after  waiting  overlong  for  David's  return  to  the 
creek,  they  both  made  their  way  down  to  the 
beach,  found  the  canoe  and  found  it  empty,  there 
was  only  one  conclusion  remaining  for  them  to 


268  David  and  Jonathan 

draw.  David  had  acknowledged  his  defeat  in  the 
trial  of  strength.  He  had  fulfilled  her  wishes. 
There  would  be  no  conflict  between  them.  He 
had  decided  the  issue  himself. 

The  tide  had  come  in,  washing  out  all  signs  of 
the  footprints  they  had  left  upon  the  sand.  There 
was  the  empty  canoe.  She  needed  no  further 
proof  of  the  course  he  had  taken — and  then,  as  I 
see  it,  she  must  have  known  but  not  actually 
till  then. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

THE  ANSWER 

AAANY  women  run  in  the  opportunist's  race, 
and,  with  all  the  handicap  of  their  emotions, 
they  find  a  place.  Some,  by  reason  of  that  handi- 
cap, are  left  behind. 

For  the  next  few  days  at  the  creek,  both  Joan 
and  Jonathan  were  too  oppressed  with  the  loss 
of  David,  to  speak  at  all  of  those  circumstances 
which,  so  far  as  they  knew,  had  brought  that  loss 
about.  Jonathan  pursued  his  duties,  Joan  hers, 
with  a  cloud  upon  their  spirits,  the  meaning  of 
which  in  her  he  could  have  been  under  no  mis- 
apprehension. 

In  all  honesty,  he  must  have  admitted  himself, 
he  felt  the  absence  of  his  friend.  To  whatever 
straits  of  circumstance  they  may  have  been  driven 
that  night  before  his  disappearance,  there  still 
had  been  the  sure  foundation  of  their  friendship. 

269 


270  David  and  Jonathan 

Nothing  could  have  altered  that;  nor  could  any- 
thing detract  from  that  spirit  of  what  in  moments 
of  anger  he  had  chosen  to  call  David's  damned 
superior  intelligence. 

Both  of  them  missed  it,  as  one  would  miss  a 
season  were  it  stolen  from  the  fulness  of  the  year. 
A  thousand  times  over  Jonathan  thanked  his  God 
that  he  had  not  been  the  instrument  of  that  rift 
of  absence  in  their  little  community.  Had  David 
heard  those  thanksgivings,  notwithstanding  all 
the  misapprehensions  on  which  they  were  based, 
he  would  have  known  he  had  done  right. 

The  test  of  it  all  had  been  made  and,  without 
any  of  the  remorse  he  must  inevitably  have  felt, 
Jonathan  must  sometimes  have  been  of  the  mind 
that  David,  in  losing,  had  won.  Yet,  as  the  days 
went  by  and  David's  absence  became  an  accepted 
fact  with  which  they  must  make  the  best  of  life 
as  it  was,  the  ultimate  resolution  of  fate  must 
have  appeared  inevitable  to  both  of  them.  And 
then,  a  bolt  out  of  the  blue,  as  it  had  been  with 
David,  there  came  their  release. 

With  a  leaping  of  their  hearts,  one  morning  as 
they  sat  at  breakfast,  they  heard  the  shouting 
of  voices,  English  voices,  in  the  forest.  As  if 
a  meteor  out  of  heaven  had  fallen  between 


The  Answer  271 

them,  they  jumped  to  their  feet.  They  were 
saved. 

The  first  complete  realization  of  their  escape 
which  came  to  Joan  was  David's  letter,  handed 
to  her,  as  he  had  desired,  no  sooner  than  the 
explanation  of  that  relief  party  was  given.  She 
kept  it,  unopened  in  her  hand,  all  the  while  until 
she  was  on  board,  and  then,  in  the  silence  and 
seclusion  of  her  own  cabin,  she  opened  it,  and 
read  its  contents. 

That  evening,  walking  up  and  down  the  deck, 
she  talked  it  all  out  with  Jonathan.  There  must 
have  been — even  at  this  distance  I  can  conceive  it 
— some  complete  upheaval  in  her  mind  at  the  reali- 
zation that  David  had  not  made  way  for  Jonathan, 
but  had  himself  escaped.  She  could  not  blame 
him.  But  the  remorse  she  had  felt  about  his 
death  was  no  longer  there.  A  great  gap  had 
suddenly  been  rent  in  her  mind,  while  as  yet 
there  was  nothing  to  fill  it.  She  had  conceived 
the  whole  Romance  as  she  had  thought  it  was,  and 
now,  all  in  a  swift  moment,  it  had  become,  as  it 
seemed  to  her,  a  different  matter  altogether. 

' '  Well,  we're  all  free  now, ' '  said  she,  meditatively, 
as  she  leant  on  the  taff rail.  ' '  And  what's  going  to 
happen  now,  I  wonder?" 


272  David  and  Jonathan 

She  had  told  him  the  substance  of  David's 
letter.  There  was  no  call  upon  her  to  tell  him 
the  last  words  with  which  it  ended.  In  reply  to 
that  half -implied  question  of  hers,  Jonathan  said 
nothing.  He  was  thinking  eagerly  of  the  new  life 
in  front  of  him,  when  she  wrenched  him  from  his 
thoughts. 

"Do  you  still  feel  the  same  about  me  now, 
Jonathan?"  she  asked. 

The  pause  before  he  answered  was  as  slight  as 
to  the  bricklayer  must  be  the  thickness  of  a  hair; 
but  to  the  architect  working  his  drawings  to  a 
scale,  the  sixteenth  of  an  inch  made  all  the  differ- 
ence in  the  world.  In  such  a  situation,  she  was 
that  architect,  dealing  with  inflexions  and  expres- 
sions on  the  minutest  scale. 

When  he  answered  quickly  and  emphatically 
that  he  had  not  changed  one  whit,  it  was  that 
pause  she  heard  more  deeply  than  the  genuine 
admission  in  his  voice.  She  changed  the  sub- 
ject, and  half  an  hour  later  went  below  to  her 
cabin. 

At  Teneriffe,  she  secured  a  berth  on  a  steamer 
going  south. 

"I  am  going  to  finish  my  voyage,"  she  said  to 
Jonathan.  ' '  My  father  will  think  I've  gone  down 


The  Answer  273 

with  the  Malaga.  I've  cabled  him  I'm  coming  by 
the  next  boat." 

She  held  out  her  hand  and  once  more  in  his 
life  the  Blue  Peter  fluttered  down  from  the  mast- 
head. 

It  was  no  formal  parting.  How  could  it  have 
been  ?  Ostensibly  and  justifiably  she  was  returning 
to  her  father  at  the  first  opportunity.  They  did 
not  say:  "Then  this  is  the  end."  But  the  ships 
of  their  destinies  were  leaving  their  moorings  and 
both  of  them  knew  they  were  bound  for  different 
harbours. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

HOME 

A  BOUT  five  months  later,  in  the  late  spring, 
**  when  the  two  friends  had  long  since  met, 
finding,  as  it  seemed  to  them  then,  that  such 
friendship  as  theirs  was  after  all  greater  than  the 
love  of  women ;  when  Jonathan  had  gone  abroad 
again  for  his  mining  company  and  David  was 
drifting  back  once  more  into  London  life,  there 
arrived  a  letter  at  the  Albany,  brought  to  David 
with  his  morning  tea. 

The  reader  must  suppose  it  was  from  Joan. 
But  the  handwriting  was  wholly  unfamiliar  to 
David.  He  tore  it  open  casually.  Her  name 
at  the  foot  of  the  page  drew  his  eyes  to  it  at 
once. 

"My  father,"  he  read,  "has  retired  from  his 
business  in  South  Africa  and  returned  to  England^ 

374 


Home  275 

We  have  bought  a  house  here  in  the  heart  of  the 
real  country.  All  this  has  happened  in  five  months, 
and  if  nothing  prevents  you,  we  should  like  to  see 
you  here  for  a  few  days.  I  shall  quite  understand 
if  you  find  it  impossible  to  get  away  and,  suppos- 
ing that  may  be  very  likely,  I  take  this  opportunity 
of  thanking  you  for  all  your  kindness  and  under- 
standing." 

David  leapt  out  of  bed.  In  half  an  hour  he 
was  eating  breakfast.  In  another  hour  he  was  in 
the  train  with  a  telegram  preceding  him.  That 
afternoon,  he  found  himself  driving  down  a  long 
drive,  cut  through  a  wood,  grass  banks  on  either 
side  freckled  with  cowslips,  and  a  cuckoo  calling 
its  first  April  note  through  the  green  tracery  of 
the  trees. 

They  had  tea  on  the  lawn.  The  first  day  hot 
enough  in  the  year.  To  all  her  father's  inquiries 
and  her  joggings  of  his  memory,  they  went  through 
most  of  that  story  again.  Then,  when  they  were 
left  alone,  after  the  meal  was  over,  she  took  David 
through  the  garden. 

"To  show  you,"  said  she,  "what  I  call  a 
home — an  English  home." 

It  was  all  cut  out,  a  clearing  in  the  heart  of  the 


276  David  and  Jonathan 

wood,  with  grass-green  alleys  leading  through  the 
high  beech  trees  just  broken  in  leaf,  to  kitchen 
gardens,  tennis  lawns,  and  rose  and  herbaceous 
borders. 

They  talked  of  commonplaces:  of  what  each 
one  of  them  had  done  during  those  five  months; 
of  how  Jonathan  had  set  off  on  his  travels  again 
and  what  part  of  the  world  he  was  then  faring  in. 

It  seemed  almost  as  though  in  those  surround- 
ings, and  with  those  days  in  the  creek  so  far  behind 
them,  they  were  merely  strangers,  met  formally 
for  the  first  time. 

This,  however,  was  not  David's  way  of  thought 
when  his  mind  was  not  in  doubt.  In  one  of  those 
alleys  hidden  from  the  house,  he  stopped  her  as 
they  walked. 

"This  is  not  us,"  he  said.  "I  always  say  the 
man  who  acts  before  he's  sure  is  thirty  times  a 
fool.  And  the  man  who  dallies  when  his  heart  is 
certain,  how  many  times  a  fool  do  you  imagine 
he  must  be?" 

She  tried  to  laugh,  as  though  she  did  not  follow 
the  line  of  his  thought.  She  tried  to  ask  him  what 
he  meant  by  suddenly  saying  that. 

"I  suppose  you've  waited  these  five  months," 
he  replied,  "to  see  how  far  circumstances  would 


Home  277 

alter   cases.     Well,    mine    was   a   bad  case.     It 
doesn't  alter  those." 

Slowly  upon  that,  he  took  her  face  in  his  hands, 
and  he  added : ' '  Thousands  of  times  I've  kissed  you 
in  my  mind.  And  what  a  poor  thing  imagination 
is." 


THE   END. 


The  Beloved  Sinner 

By 
Rachel  Swete  Macnamara 

Author  of  "Fringe  of  the  Desert,"  "The  Torch  of  Life," 
and  "Drifting  Waters" 

12*.    $1.50  net.    By  mail,  $1.65 

But  for  the  sin,  they  would  have  lived  happily 
from  their  meeting — and  there  would  have  beea 
no  story.  But  the  sin  brought  misunderstanding, 
making  the  old  road  of  true  love  rough — for 
awhile.  But  it  strengthened  the  courage  and  the 
devotion  of  the  two,  and  all  the  varied  and  fas- 
cinating characters  in  this  charmingly  told  story. 
And  the  Man  and  the  Girl  found  their  hard-won 
happiness  awaiting  them — in  the  proper  place — 
at  the  end  of  the  road. 

A  tale  for  all  who  like  a  story  of  true  love  un- 
touched by  war  or  the  rumours  of  war. 


The  Untamed 

By 
Max  Brand 

72°.     Color  Wrapper.     $1.50  net.    By  mail,  $1.6$ 

A  tale  of  the  West,  a  story  of  the  Wild;  of 
three  strange  comrades, — Whistling  Dan  of 
the  untamed  soul,  within  whose  mild  eyes 
there  lurks  the  baleful  yellow  glare  of  beast 
anger;  of  the  mighty  black  stallion  Satan,  King 
of  the  Ranges,  and  the  wolf  devil  dog,  to 
whom  their  master's  word  is  the  only  law, — 
and  of  the  Girl. 

How  Jim  Silent,  the  "long- rider"  and  out- 
law, declared  feud  with  Dan,  how  of  his  right- 
hand  men  one  strove  for  the  Girl,  one  for 
the  horse,  and  one  to  " '  get '  that  black  devil 
of  a  dog,"  and  their  desperate  efforts  to 
achieve  their  ends,  form  but  part  of  the  stir- 
ring action. 

A  tale  of  the  West,  yes — but  a  most  un- 
usual one,  touched  with  an  almost  weird 
poetic  fancy  from  the  very  first  page,  when 
over  the  sandy  wastes  sounds  the  clear  sweet 
whistling  of  Pan  of  the  desert,  to  the  very 
last  paragraph  when  the  reader,  too,  hears  the 
cry  and  the  call  of  the  wild  geese  flying 
south. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A    000058142     1 


